The School Playground For Adults

I have been slow to appreciate and rank
the plethora of media outlets, many of which
are no more than random names to me,
Facebook, X, Bluesky, Instagram, Tik-Tok,
whatsapp, and al the rest in terms of their speed
at sharing voluminous levels of communications,
where clarity and inclusive humour of the message
are in the mind of the receiver. For whom being there
often reminds them of times in the school playground.

But I think I have got it now,
the measure of how fast we think
is how fast we can be seen to write. 

But when that measure includes how crude
and rude to each other we can be, what that amounts to
is how we use public media to disown the parts of us
we want to disown before people who know us in person.

I take the slower route, and know fewer people,
with whom I try to represent myself in the mass media
who I would want to be, if we were to meet in person.

Telephonophobia

I like landlines, I like the telephone line
that connects everyone through the wires,
and limits how far they can move.
When I get a phone call I like for there
to be no screens near me as we both sit
in different places concentrating on the voice,
the words, and the ideas that we share.

One of my friends has I-don't-know-how-many-ways
of being contacted, a landline, a mobile phone line
in an area of low levels of connection, twitter, instagram,
and a whatsapp app, whatever that is, besides.

I say he is my friend. I very rarely ring him.
Whichever line contact him on, it is the wrong one.
He does not answer and he never collects his messages.

When I really need to talk to him I write him a note.
I get on the local bus and deliver the note through his letterbox.
Then I get the bus home, and wait for my landline to ring.

It is the only route I know that bypasses his telephonophobia....

The Less We Have To Say

the more our ways of saying it
expand beyond all need or want
which put us off from expressing
what originally seemed to be
a neat and tart turn of phrase.