For The Twenty-First Century

interpretation of Frank Bidart’s, For The Twentieth Century

I want to press the || PAUSE button:—

...Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg

we are barely alive, yet living—

insipid wholly instinctive lowly vapid

nothing

it is

just eyes bulging above blue light

hanging us relentlessly by our necks

d r a g g i n g trigger fingers over screens

clutched between dings

disposed,

we crave newer testaments

diversified subtitles, relatable tweets, grammarless text messages,

as if Christ’s spoken verse.

disposable,

the world that at a hasty vibration

freezes with all of its disposition.

as if hitting the button would do anything.

*

consistent patterns app addicted forever coded as infinite scrolling

is there to be thanks for the twenty-first century?

when repeatability within matter defies matter—

playing outside. swapping CD’s. the thought behind handwritten letters

they are we are lost,

in a nanotech swamp of clickbait, phishing for something not real.

Art of the consumer.