Let me see now – the subject’s Digital?
Now there’s a chilling word if ever I’ve heard one.
As hard as ice: bitter, freezing: frigital
The sort of word that would flash
Past your eyes in Antarctica
As you plunged down a crevice into the darkness.
A word that gives me the shivers
A word that leaves me cold.
I miss the simple life we had.
I regret the Internet, I dread the Web
I’m up to here with Graphic Logic Controllers
Multi-protocol Gateways and
Selectable Source and Sink Models –
Driven mad by Production Information Terminals
Software Line-ups and Hot-Swap functions –
I’ve had enough of all that stuff –
Though I’m ashamed to admit I once wrote
For a multi-national computer company –
Digital Electronics Corporation to be precise
And attended a day of personnel induction:
Level 32, Theatrette B, horse-shoe table
Nervous newcomers, name cards turned inwards,
Tiered seats each side, no place to hide
From the seduction –
A breezy guy with an eagle eye strides in
And hits us with an avalanche of spin:
Loyalty’s the key to greatness –
Long hair’s out, likewise lateness.
You’ll live and breathe and dream high-tech
And very soon you’ll meet – our Chief Exec.
Coffee break. They file from the room
I stay behind, hide in the upper gloom.
And watch a stranger casually stroll in
Silk suit, white shirt no tie and buzz-cut bold:
Pick up one name card, glance at it:
And then depart – the air goes cold.
We re-convene. Of course it’s him
Just in from New York Worldwide HQ
He’s electrifying, mesmerising –
And he turns to one fresh face and says
‘Isn’t that true, Charles, isn’t that true?’
And Charles goes home that day
Agog, aglow
He’d caught the eye of the CEO …
He’d caught the eye of the CEO!
Next day he changed his name to Chuck
Procured a flash new car
Bestowed his wife with diamonds
As befits a rising star.
The years crawled by. He never heard.
He turned into a backroom nerd.
He’s there today. You’d never know
He’d caught the eye of the CEO.
Digital Age? Digital Rage is more what it’s about
And like Cecil B De Mille – and Charles –
I say … Include Me Out.
John McCallum
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1 comment:
That opening stanza sets the pace for what is a sever critisim for the glorious age of technology - shame on you John! Where would we be without it?
Then of course the second stanza explains your disquite and the third only cements your reasoning.
The unevenness of the poem too, its staccto line endings, which jar os perfectly against each other is the absolute antithis of the digital age. That I like, it made me read carefully and thus fully appreciate the message you so abely delivered. Thank you.
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