What if Shakespeare had a cellphone
With a Facebook page and Instagram,
And Hamlet, the king obsessed with Google,
Into exile without internet?

What if Paul Revere just sent a tweet
That the British were on the scene,
Or Columbus merely sent a selfie
To her majesty the Queen?

What if Plato had a website of followers?
So many hits a day, he went viral-
So many emoji thumbs up in yellow-
They had to condemn him; he chose the vial.

Me? I like to chat with Tutankhamen.
Pyramids of wi-fi... all you do is press "send."

I have a problem...
A very serious problem.
I cannot talk to machines.

I try to reason with them,
But always go into a surrealistic episode
Ending with a tirade of foul insults.

A syrupy voice says with a British touch
"When you hear your choice please
Please say yes or press one,
Followed by the hashtag....”
I scream such ****** things!
But I cannot get the her angry.
Has she taken a Socratic oath?
Did she take some cyber LSD?

I say, “Hey babe, ever have an ******”
Y’know what she says to me,
That I’m being sexist.
“So you think, I mean really think
Of yourself as a woman? “
“I’m Cyber Gender,
No need to be mean.
Why do you hate me?
I don’t hate you.”

(Imagine some millennial programmer
Was hired for infuriating pleasantness!
They heard of  people like me, the old ones,
Pampering us like we emerged from a jungle
And would get lost in a supermarket).

The elevator asks me what floor,
And reminds me to have a nice day.
(O,  how I miss that operator man
Going up and down all his life,
With bad breath and body odors,
Dandruff powdering his uniform,
Saying something poetic about the baseball game...
Seeing us daily at our best and worst
He might say “have a good one,”
But only if he meant it.)

The self-pay check-out reminds me
“Please take your cell phone.”
Everyone near
Holds it like the battery
To their hearts.

I see the latest blockbusters of
Man versus the Androids.
Man always used to win.
Lately the screen writers prefer the robots.
(O, forgive me! AI.  My bad.
“Robots” are not PC! Lol, lol, lol...)  

How shall I proceed-  
They’ll lock me up if I’m not careful.
I’ve noticed the folks in power
Who have conversations with God  
Have no problem with Siri.

These malicious machines don’t get drunk.
They can never understand
There’s great empathy in human relationship
Even if the other person, like yourself,
Is not really listening.

Summer haunts us with dense heat,
Slowing the velocity of history, releasing us
From the daily accusations of corrupted souls.  
Shall we all burn in a seethe of lava
In this season of hatred we have of each other?

The summer brings punishing rays of the sun.
I am alone, in the shade of leaves
Sweating a mist of tears, escaping violation
By propaganda of these sinister times.
Here a spider dances, a master at his craft,
Wrapping his pray in a coffin of silk
Trapped and buried alive
As I am trapped in a web of lies,
Soon to be devoured by the primal loathing
Of our different points of view.

Drought and fire scorch the land.
Who can understand the savagery of revenge
Like sandstorms from distant deserts?
How unreal to imagine once we worshipped
Pagan gods, or once we worshipped democracy.
Now we either bow to the emperor’s decrees
Or risk our wholeness to survive.

I’m shutting my ears to the shouts.
I seek only a serenity of stillness,
Admiring the spider oblivious of the heat.
Soon the storms of autumn raise their alarms
And tear the webs with howling force!
The putrid saps will swell on the ground,
And all will hail with vented voice
To swear their allegiances
To the emperor who must stand,
Or the tyrant who must fall!

She is lost to her shopping
Rooms of shoes to be worn once or twice
Instantly bored of her sunglasses
She needs new bathrobes today.

The masses bleed for compassion,
Babies torn from a mother’s breast
Screaming in foreigners’ arms
O soft spoken beauty
This was your Evita moment
To spread your magic fashion smile.

If you could shed a tear
On your high Slavic cheeks
And wave your wand! All,
All will adore you!

She chooses a curious graffiti
To wear on her coat
To meet the children
Freed from their cages.
Her stance is quite clear;
But the last angel who said
“Well, let them eat cake!”
Lost her head...

Her 15 minutes are up-
The Third Estate brands her the *****!  
Just like all the arrogant queens  
She now hides from the world  
And surrounds herself with
The carnival filth
Who merry make
In the hunger games.

I found my bench in the arboretum
In a lush corner of the conifers
Where I can be all alone for hours
All alone, my back against a plaque:

         In the loving memory of
            Herbert M Parker
                   1984

I sit on his shoulders so to speak;
We read, we dream, we nap,
We name the loud birds above us
After our favorite opera singers;
Herb and I love to discuss Big History,
And his time in the great war.

When the spring comes
I serenade my friend
And play from Bach for beginners
On the classical guitar-
Herb is an expert in the baroque,
But also has a great feel for samba.

He’s getting a bit run down, you know;
His legs are halfway in the soil,
His skin is spattered with moss.  
Salamanders live in his arm rest,
Ivy and dandelion poke through
The slats of greying wood.
But I say nothing: we are soul mates now.

Somewhere in the black earth he lies,
But I feel his body is right below me;
Somebody loved him enough
To place him here with loving memories
And pass the seasons with a stranger.

I was one to stare at the restless waves,
Hour after hour on the lonely beach
They filled my despair with the promise
Of forgetfulness and permanence.

I listened with soothing anticipation
For the soft crashing on the shore.
An uncluttered world split three ways-
A fine line between the sky and ocean grey  

And the jagged graph the retreating waves
Leave in amber on the moist sands.
I sat detached among empty shells        
Content that the sea spray filled the air

Pungent with the rotting seaweeds.
I was the only living thing around-
Contemplating the basic elements
To seasons defined by my clothing.

But lately I return to this wooded meadow
Where seasons rule and force their will.
Where summer is cloaked in shades of green
Which transform to the earthy tones of autumn;

Here the crystalline of the ice storms glare;
And now, before me, trees and shrubs awake,
The sky disappears to the spreading leaves
And I am one small life beneath the canopy,    

As spring flowers with birdsong and buzzing;
Yet the fox and snake scatter through the ivies,
The spider webs stretch from branch to bough;
Such magnificence among the hidden terror  

As all around the unseen butchers of survival
Carry out their missions of life and death-
As I play my part in the proliferation
Renewed with a simple joy to be alive.

Perhaps when it all comes out in the open,
All the white lies, the little lies, the epic lies,
Of how we responded to the crying planet,
All will be said in a courtroom of compassion.
The lawyers remove their heavy wigs
And plead my case of guiltiness-

“Your honor, the defendant was no more
Able to change the tide than a red ant
Among billions on a jungle floor.
He took his few tons from the planet-
He took what he needed but no more;
He attended all conservation events.
He voted to save bees and elephants,
He abstained from swordfish to save the oceans,
Avoided pesticides and toxic lotions;  
He fervently supported free abortions.
And bicycled to save the ozone
(When it was sunny and not too cold).
He purchased ripe fruits from Whole Foods.
He recycled books, old boots and shoes.
He forbade polyester to touch his skin.
He kept his flushes to a minimum.
His got 28 miles per gallon in town.
He never was seen throwing garbage around. "

"Your honor, the murderers of the buffaloes
Have been pardoned by the courts long ago-
It is true, he killed a rooster and a kangaroo,
But evidence shows they were clearly confused
With no reason to be loitering on the roads.  
This man is unjustly accused, and if I must say,
Writes poems about the birdsong in May.
From where I sit, the court must acquit!”  

                                                          
The trial continues daily, like reality TV,
But nothing seems to alter prophecies.
What good if I set myself ablaze
Like the Buddhist in the center of Broadway-
I am haunted by a future I cannot explain
Trying to live out my life without blame.

The next generations are unknowable beings-
They will find their beaches in the rising tides
Made of plastic corals and robotic fish;
They will play in virtual forests with android slaves;
With perfect teeth and perfect pitch
The genetically enhanced go off to the galaxies,
In search of planets to greedily consume,
To spread the seeds of the earth and start anew.
What can a simple man as I know of such things?

The jury gives verdicts dispassionately-
For now I’m out on bail, I’m free to go,
No more guilty than my brethren of old
Who slayed the mammoth and fantastical dodo.