No one wants to be here anymore!
Is that guy with the laptop and vanilla
latte really at Starbucks in Walnut Creek?
Or surfing cyber seas on Google Earth?
I glimpse the primal passion of the questor
in his eye, as his fingers roam up & down
the track. Any where is preferable to here.

Cut to Top of the Mark where four Facebook
“friends” have “gotten together” in the flesh
to toast this evening’s birthday girl, Sue;
who, ignoring the view of San Francisco,
is texting former college roommate Pat
on the lower West Side of Manhattan;
while Friend Kim is phoning boyfriend Matt
at Giants Stadium in Rutherford, New Jersey
(courtesy of Stan’s Sports Bar in San Jose).
By the time they return to sip champagne
Brenda and Jane are both off BlackBerrying.
 
On BART the inmates have gone wireless;
jailhouse-rocking to gangsta rap on iPods;
Kindling jiffy book deals on the Amazon;
or searching the Verizon for accomplices;
arranging Great Escapes via getaway cars
in parking lots a few stops down the line.

The only ring to fear is ringtone itself.

You! who pretend you’re in this bookstore
or café hearing me read this grumpy poem:
I can see you tweeting what you’ve scribbled
on your napkin—to Simply Haiku in Kyoto.

Trapped inside technology’s revolving door,
permit me to emit this non-Bronx cheer:
Gertrude! thou should be living at this hour!
America has need of thee to glower:
When you get here there’s no here here.


This poem first appeared in Thema.
Used here with the author’s permission.