In The Process Of Extinction

We live in a static bubble,
a constant place called now.
Past and future flicker on temporal walls:
causal pictures of why, and of how.

Our lives are egocentric, greedy,
and the need to acquire is strong.
We’re conditioned to want and to use.
We are right, while others are wrong.

Corporate masters control us,
supplying false memes, and lies.
They teach us to suspect the different;
what to hate, who to demonise.

We live in a shiny plastic sphere,
with fake news and chemical food,
and if reality should seep in,
we take pills to adjust our mood.

So our masters do just as they please,
while we ignore our plight.
Our environment is being killed.
We’re on the edge of nuclear night.

We are taught to expect Eternity,
but Forever doesn’t care:
the concept of Always does exist
but we will not be there.

We could have made a difference,
but we would not see:
in the process of extinction
there is no you, nor me.

The Button Box

Skipping stones
across the pond
of time.
Coleco
SNES
Nintendo
Internet
smartphone
tablets
and good old
D and D.

My Mum had a button box
full of magical tokens.
Rainy days,
                   or sick in bed,
those tokens were all mine.
Armies on the field,
arrayed bright and dauntless,
                  against the glittering foe.
And the Wish Market,
where the correct combination
of contrasting coloured counters
purchased your wildest
                  dreams.

Now, in a later time,
the buttons are recalled
complete
with memories of innocence
                 and youth.
But the security
                 and the surety
of those wondrous,
those different
                 times
remain,
safe          and          real,
in a button box
          on a rainy day.
      

The Cage

The outside was brightly painted,
adorned with cheery slogans,
inspirational memes.
Inside was dark and dank,
with an acrid smell
that spoke of captivity,
and pain.

Outside the sun shone
with the insistence 
of a Norman Rockwell painting,
and the joy of an ice-cream van;
bright memories
of a kinder, happier time
of swimming holes and dusty roads.

The captive stalked and grumbled,
biting his chains in angry futility,
and clawing at the steel bars.
People came, paused, pointed,
and poked at him with pointed sticks,
as they called him by the myriad names
of the Demon.

The moon, his faithful and only friend,
came to visit one evening,
with heat lightening on a dark horizon.
Ozone crackled as the bars melted
to the sound of an arcane lament,
and he stepped out
into a changed and different world.

He adapted, and learned the language
of networking and power-dressing.
Master of the easy smile
he was sought for his insight,
for his erudition, for his charm.
Alone, however, at day’s end,
he remembered the cage, and cried.

Timeline

Some of us base our lives
on traditions of the past;
and tribal beliefs and customs
keep life from moving too fast.

Others live for tomorrow,
and plan lives years ahead,
embracing a religion
that promises life when they’re dead!

We marginalize, and demonise,
discounting others’ points of view.
Our tribes care not for probity,
and discount veracity too.
Huddled around our little fires,
in the midst of our simple caves,
letting enhanced tales of our history
soothe us like gentle waves.
Or let us live for tomorrow,
and pretend that we’ll never die:
our tribe guarantees us all
an eternal home in the sky.
Today and now is so frightening,
filled with hate, greed and war;
we refuse to focus on solutions,
and return to our group, secure.

It is not easy to live in the present,
to be in this glorious now,
surrounded by difficult problems,
that ask what? when? and how?

Now requires great commitment
to accept that we live, then we die.
We can build a truly utopian world,
but we must stop complaining, and try.