On the train I am listening to the old talk about technology

a present of the young

their messages take time to be heard

take time to blossom out as colourful fruit

and the young ponder over them, unsure

and the young know too well the temptations of forbidden fruit.

​

On the train I pause from reading,

distracted by humble chatter, by trees,

find myself floating in the mass of technology, the cloud of it

peeking in.

uncovering.

And I give myself an interlude to think.

Sometimes we lose our network connection,

sometimes we gravitate to corners of the spider’s web

corners that we have refreshed

a thousand times.

Our connections are buggered, nowadays, now and then.

​

I’ve been away from trains for a week,

sitting at home in front of my computer,

I’m digesting the pixels in front of my eyes, ready-made meals

because I am a child of this modern world, one of the tadpoles

a tadpole of an electrical storm pond

and I gulp fresh water up not because I have to,

not because I need to,

but because I want to know how live wires taste

I want to know how one tadpole may recognise another

or how a million tadpoles are just today bumping into one another.

Someday tadpoles become frogs.

Someday I’ll become one too, or I’ll be stopped before I turn into the enemy

a toad.

​

I am not one to expel technology, cast it out like it wronged my family

but I understand that it numbs

I understand that from time-to-time technology is the rotted banana

that we assume will taste like garbage disposal, and shoe

but I ate a black banana last week, because I was told it would inspire me

and nothing tasted like old boot

the banana was not rotten

not like technology can be, in the wrong mangled hands

so be cautious, check wisely, know when a banana

is the wrong colour, texture, whatever

and don’t eat it if flies call it home.

​

It is a matter of how you mould it, that shiny metal

the piece you call your phone, your laptop, your tablet

for some people technology is a pill they swallow to stay sane

I beam when he messages me, easier than waiting in the rain

for a letter from him to be delivered.

I may not fade away with the wind if I am away from my phone

I may not glitch out

I find I am not fused to the wiring of my technology

but if you stripped it from me, for forever,

I may never forgive you.

​

I suppose technology means I have forgotten a little

about my poetry, in particular,

for I haven’t written a poem in a while, in part

because I write my poetry in heartbreak, too,

but never blame a shortage of poetry on technology

because tapping on keys created Fabletown.

And he thought it was incredible.

But I will hold one resolution, for now, for the new year

when I go back to trains, back to people-watching,

I will write more poetry.

​

- Keeley Young