All this time our souls believed
That our hands which used to hold
Perhaps another hand, or tool,
Or book, now hold the mouth to running brooks
Of countless ecstasies, of dreams
In glowing visions of the night
Which make us truly come alive,
To know, to see, to make, to preen
Our love-songs to a sea of souls;
Instead we hold the deepest void,
An opiate pall upon our hearts,
Now shrouded o’er the waking day
By downcast eyes no more to raise
To dancing spheres in darkened sky.

I cry, no more! Whence have our souls
Once lovely in the broken light
Of broken world made lovely through
Communion shared by souls anew
Each day; now souls consumed
By TicTok, Twitter, raging news,
The Gram’s eternal, mindless feed,
By YouTube’s powerful clutching hands,
By games empowered by our greed;
These bricks of metal, glass, and steam
Which glow with eerie bluish cast
Upon our weakened eyes and minds–
Whence have they chosen now instead
To be caught in this insidious spell?
These machines which we have birthed
Have so quick our poor minds usurped.

But worst of all, we really see
In all the screens on all the walls
In all the hands in all the halls
In all the news and all the feeds
Ourselves; indeed
The world which we think we hate
Which drives us to such deep despair,
Is really just our own reflection;
My trembling, fearful soul laid bare
Is what I send when I tap “share.”