After Walt Whitman
I assert myself and sing
on the platform of my making.
(I am large, I contain platitudes.)
And what I believe you shall believe,
for every thought belonging to me as mine belongs to you.
A child said What is the web? searching his phone without looking up.
How could I answer the child? I do not know his number?
I guess it must be the invention of the military, out of defensive stuff woven.
What do you think has become of the young, old—and, of course—middle aged?
They are alive and well somewhere.
Even the smallest like, post, or Candy Crush invitation
shows there really is no end to us.
—
Photo credit: Arjan
Ah, the platform we use is theirs; our ‘platform’ is just content, tending to a short present and a shallow consensus. . .
somewhat alive, less healthy, a nowhere everywhere, even when we are together, all tapping and swiping in corners. . . more enmeshed is less free.
.screen time lacks the charm, challenge, and risk of face time. . .but is reliably self-soothing.
no end to us – the present does not let us begin; being resists becoming
the business class is at best complicit and opportunist with this passive and deep status quo; at worst, it understands and seeks to reinforce it. Marketing, manipulation, and deceit are protected under free speech, and corporations are persons
and we rush to catch Pokemons with a screen between us and the world.