or BELLS PALSY,
or CAN WE TALK?
by Ken Fisher
Alexander Graham must be convulsing in his grave
As you show me what technology has sold you
Thinner than a baseball card, not much bigger than a sponge
All that one could want, packed into microscopic circuits
It organizes every detail of your overwhelming life
It talks you through your panic when you’re lost
It schedules the maintenance for your SUV
And downloads every i tune at your whim
You can watch a movie, squinting at your two inch screen
You can piss your life away playing mindless games
You can surf for endless porn (a hand-held miracle!)
And take a quick snapshot beneath some unsuspecting skirt
The one thing that you can’t do, is place a clear, crisp call
That people might be capable of understanding
And that is why you stand before me now, for yesterday
I couldn’t comprehend one word of your garbled message
So though you’re proud to text “your five” with boring, endless drivel
You paced the sidewalk searching for a spot with good reception
Me- I’d rather use two cans stretched taut along a string
For the answer to Joan Rivers’ question, now, is “No, we can’t”
But only I seem bothered by the static
Ken Fisher has been writing poetry for over thirty years. Some of his recent publishing credits include The Well Tempered Sonnet, The Performance Poets Association Literary Review, Poetic Hours, Westward Quarterly, and For Loving Precious Beast, an anthology of pet poems by Purple Sage Press.