But enough about me, he said. What about you?
Tell me about the things you like to do,
your loves and passions, where you’re from,
your friends and family, the high school prom.
The books you’ve read, the songs you play,
how many steps you’ve walked today.
Your favourite team, the links you click,
and why not show me all your pics
and every message you’ve ever sent,
your phone contacts, and each event
you’ve attended – parties, gigs, street protests.
Oh, and every opinion that you’ve expressed.
I’ll share, too. Then serve it back to you:
it helps to optimise the ad click-thru’s.
Whole lives reduced to data sets,
algorithmic, summed up, expressed;
calculations based on hopes and fears
to influence what then appears
and manipulate the world that’s seen,
a rough harvesting of humanity.
Month: March 2018
Gremlin
Assorted Poems, Some poemsA gremlin’s meddling in state affairs.
He lives beneath the White House stairs
in a cupboard stocked with fake tan jars
and shelves of tarnished samovars.
He creeps out at the witching hour
to sabotage the wheels of power
and make them turn the way he chooses.
And how his puppetry amuses!
The Gremlin’s own Petrushka doll,
a clown hand-carved to play this role.
A wooden, empty-headed thing!
See him dance as he pulls the strings.