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).
CrackedCeiling 