GOING VIRAL

What we want to be without,

   wants to be within

and seems to be getting there at will

That’s in spite of vapoury advice,

   and pusillanimous hints and pointers

from tiny men caught in a global tsunami,

   and even the slow drip of saving jabs.

Funny:  dowdy sparrows and gaudy jays,

   Frogs, daffodils and modest snowdrops

Just did not, and will not realise.

And in Autumn migrating swallows

      won’t escape, but just  ignore

this excusable obsession with microscopic Vikings

MODERN WORLD

Daily, almost hourly

                        I have moaned about the modern world

But I am in it, whether part of it or not

A leaf might just as well berate its tree

                        for being too old or growing too fast

                                                                        or not enough.

If the tree is felled the leaf goes with it

                                    without voice but not belittled by the fall

Yes I am in it, right in it.

                                    Perhaps I should  use what tiny influence I have ,

   but mainly live for me and mine.

Involving or avoiding, walking with or side-stepping as suits,

            not agonising and not too flippant either or too cool:

                        just aware and moving on.

EMBRACE THE MODERN WORLD

Against some prejudices and tired spirits 

I will embrace the modern world.

Tear up the letters, forget the phones with wires:

The postcards and the telegrams already unremembered.

New as the tree-torn apple and the unwrapped sock,

I lovingly accept tomorrow’s latest and I find

A kaleidoscope of media

Converging and expanding

Like waves of starlings in a three dimensional sky.

The starlings sing and imitate in discord , yet all ideas are echoes of each other.

Just as their solo bodies merge to form the swirling clouds.

Human copying is not creative and less thoughtful.

New streams for individuals to express

Turn into rivers for mobs to drown in.