Whatever happened to depth perception,
the old-fashioned concept that
if a body was a million miles hence
then the eyes told no different.
But now distant moons
press against the glass
like forest creatures in winter
scouring for warm
and planets hover
in all their three dimensional splendor
as if a hand through the screen
could grip them like baseballs
not forgetting those suns which
if they were ever as close
as the computers' mirages
would bum byte and being to a crisp.
And speed's no help,
the sense of actually getting some place
as ancient as foot power
to the hyper-drive dujour.
Can't even remember something or someone
and keep it in the head
when there's holograms,
those cockamamie dreams-in-waiting.
Not forgetting pills that synthesize taste,
robots that duplicate friends and lovers,
and music composed by a Salieri android
because the Mozart model's too expensive.
Here's to reality, the most compromised
concept in the universe.
I'd drink a toast but I don't have to.
The drunkenness implant just kicked in.
JOHN GREY; Australian born poet, playwright, musician. Latest book is "What Else Is There" from Main Street Rag. Recently in Hubbub, South Carolina Review and The Journal Of The American Medical Association.
© John Grey
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