Instead of foraging around making connections
with cables and wireless systems that
bluetooth and sync their way
into our pocket technologies
and portable screens

(tablets of which we self-prescribe
and regulate through overdose
and comatose keenings of stillness
and waking dreams)

why, instead
don’t we fool around
making connections
with others of like mind and brainwaves
instead of radiowaves and
the mastered minds of computer waves
and lift an arm and
really wave
beyond our windows to
real people
in real time
rather than peeping
like a holographic Tom through
tabs and browsing windows,
multi-tasking time in a state of mime
like it’s about to expire

(like the wireless wires will break)

and all that we’ll have is
all we can physically take
from this moment awake we call ‘life’
– a mistake.

What else is left now
in this vegetative
one man one woman state
where we live to close our eyes
and shut our minds and wait for
the modem-router to re-dial and
get our avatar back online and
our friends back into our
multi-dimensional realer-than-time
time?

Pseudonyms solving identity changes
emerge without birth
with designer non-faces, as
now that we no longer need imperfection
or meaning or privacy
or even perception
we alter ourselves to impress our connections
with whom we connect without really connecting
by hiding as one almost nearing detection
and tip-toeing straight past
concern or reflection

(invisible firewalls at our protection)

our own walls around us
with keys we can capslock,
screening ourselves from unfriended friends,
and playfully sated by charm and ‘pretends’
that will mean next to nothing
when fantasy ends.

Where ARE the connections we make
in this digital age
that we rarely turn off since
the internet craze has become a new God
that we dial to be saved
as we sacrifice friends we once made
face to face
with those we are longing to meet
as we race across networks
with hunger and haste and
with spambots and data and viruses made
to detect and infect
and reject, just for starters,
and that’s not to mention
the ads and the logins and
passwords that lock us
from somewhere far yonder
that doesn’t exist
as we grow ever fonder
of pics and of pixels and
texts of expression
– the reality of which
we could lose in a second.

Do you accept the terms and conditions?
Clicked so unwittingly,
Private information sold to the highest bidder,
Read the small print and it's plain to see.

Nothing is yours any-longer,
They know you better than yourself,
Corporations and governments unite,
They sell your data with the upmost stealth.

The all seeing eye is upon us,
And its glare seeks to remand,
We unknowingly sign away our lives,
It's a sphere of oppression, an arm, a hand.

The people must fight this tyranny,
We can't roll over and play dead,
We are more than a wire to be tapped,
Oppose the militant laws that seek to deflate us with dread.

Don't find trust in empty promises,
Manifesto's weighing heavy with slander and lies,
Find trust in the people,
Our independence must never die.

Do you accept the terms and conditions?
We must stand against the corrupt,
Despotism enveloped by mock democracy,
The free public must erupt.

I am so sorry for invading part of your privacy.