Am constantly amazed (read: embarrassed) how, before I know it, I’m once again being mastered by my machines. Scrolling on my phone: it feels like five minutes – it’s thirty. A lovely pile of books waiting to be read – I pick up my phone again. Emails waiting to be written – I get sucked down the latest online controversy rabbit hole.

The poem below was written years ago, but feels a hundred times more relevant today, for me at least. That’s probably partly because I’m a slow learner, but I wonder if it’s also because our machines, and the people behind them, are becoming more efficient, more cunning and greedy in keeping our attention. 

Here’s my latest combat strategy: Just as I regularly update the apps on my phone, I also need to regularly update my brain, like having a personal ‘brain alert app’, a YOU-ARE-CURRENTLY-BEING-MASTERED-BY-A-MACHINE one.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

PRAYING AN OBITUARY (FOR HUMANITY) WON’T BE NECESSARY                                                                   

man by machines mesmerized 

by device seduced

we scare ourselves witless 

likes shares 

shape our souls 

propaganda run rampant 

half-boiled frogs we haven’t a clue 

a kid with a Tesla & no idea 

where the brakes are 

please God we figure it out 

or step away from the vehicle 

before we’re 

cooked

heaven hear our cry 

grant us the grit to grasp 

are we mastering the mechanics 

of enslavement to our gadgets 

or mutating 

into some kind of 

zombie 

   amphibian

From poetry collection ‘Dear Planet’, published by Fidessa Literary in July 2025. (First shared on Rattlecast’s Open Mic in December, 2022.)

Photo: a beautiful, healthy (uncooked) Common Tree Frog (Polypedates leucomystax).