**** yourself and be born again
to a time you may fit
Where buttons and signals did not exist.
If I were to **** myself and be born again
I would go to a time where love was far from modern
Where signals were only through telephone wires, cable connectors
and hearts.
My hazy head has been disconnected from your heart in this new aged world
and my own.
The love has been deactivated
Your presence has been blocked
My emotional state is offline
And your signal is no longer connected

All because of buttons and signals.

We're forgetting the art of talking on the phone for hours and hours
It was better than texting because you could hear each other's voices
in near real time
without having to show oneself
Now you can hide your voice too
and overthink everything you say

It's texting or video chat
You're either the most remote
or as close as you can get
from a near human reaction

You're yourself after you think long and hard?
Not who you trained to be on impulse
Who trained me I wonder?
Me, commercials, parents, environment, or destiny

It's my goal to be a fractured self
that can immerse themselves in the entrails
of any one of these cubbyholes

Black glass
Hugged by plastic.
A rigid, shiny stone,
Holy and smooth as silk.

It calls upon you.
Its dark face glowing with glee,
its still form
trembling in tantrum.

Eyes gawk eagerly while
dexterously trained fingers
Slide their grease-stained trail
across its blossoming surface,
trapped in vanity.
A technological marvel,
one might say,
it’s glistening roads worshipped and
Truly wondrous.

All the images: moving, smiling, addicting.
The knowledge of the universe, packed into
a tiny, plastic cocoon,
festering, growing, evolving,
eager to be eaten.

Endorsing gluttonous laze, and
Unmasking humanity’s
unseemly colors;
it lulls you in with its
digital spindle embrace, the
sharp strings of data
reaching in through the eyes and
touching the optic nerve.
Neurons swell in ecstasy, pupils dilate, the heart screams;
matter of the brain catches fire in
its electrical storm, and
cascades into chemical ******.

Satiating a toxic lust.
Brilliant glass
turns to black,
stuck to your hand like glue.

Industrialised glam, digitalised intimacy
Rich aroma, dancing lights;
implicit wonders are unexplored
as they hide beneath the headstock
obeying society's stream of thought.

Rigour movements, sundried streets
hustling and bustling with only time to beat;
withering moments drape the paved sidewalk
just like the bland orange tainted tree in
your grave backyard (which many have described to be hollow and large)

Lingering spirits have strewn themselves over your covered sheets,
cementing their curtains as the bright white light
of haven glistens above their unblinking eyes
constricted by the deafening silence,
untoned to the faint hymns of children's laughter.

"Stop to smell the roses", the wise men speak:
confidence is their ruse; do not let it deceive you.
They hide amongst the similar thousands of men,
yet never raising a head to any of them.
These are the children of our future.

Senseless to surroundings, spray them fresh air,
Move their cognitive gears to move their oil-rigged limbs;
Let their creative minds sway to the rhythm of rustling trees,
Revive the diverse culture of our people for these brainwashed folks;
Deny the irony of being consumed, when you are the consumer.

To lessen liabilities,
to lower costs and
make the world more,
more productive; exacting...

To make everything easier,
a life more fulfilling...
...more predictable, perhaps,
more equal than now.

To eliminate sadness,
anger, depression, anxiety.
To work less at everything,
they will do it all for me.

The planet will be saved by the extirpation of human activity...

...for who needs humans to trade stock?
...who needs humans to make widgets?
...who needs humans to clean things?

Who needs humans at all?

I peer into the depths of forest:
A seeming infinity of trees
And undergrowth.
Gnarled branches adorned
By countless butterfly wings.
A sea of green
Above those black-hole shadows.

Who knows what lies beyond those lines?
What friends or foes might well be met
In there.
Monsters may lurk,
Or fairies frolic around mushroom rings.

Yes, an infinity of sheer delight
Or hell.
Maybe I’ll find you a cottage in those woods,
With a garden path to lead you down for more.

I stare
And wonder.
Then I put away my mobile
(And the mayhem is gone again).
LOL.

Paul Butters