Poem about a visit to an Apple Store
Extra, Extra, Read All About it! Apple to unveil its new line of smartphones.September 12.The new phones are expected to be larger and pricier The new top tier iPhone will cost $999, which is about $300 more than the current top tier phone.I don’t care how other people spend their money. Actually, I’m glad they have it to spend. But where do all these people come from who are willing and able to pay a thousand dollars for a phone? The economy has only recently begun to recover from the doldrums of the last eight years. I’m not being snarky. It’s just that I can’t imagine myself spending that much money on a phone no matter how many tricks it can do. Well, I’m not a techie nor do I want to be. I grew up in another era.
PURSUED BY NO ONE
Shopping at an Apple store,
I got looks I’ve got before
and realized I’d been consigned
to former times when poems rhymed
and you would find on every drugstore rack
a paperback anthology of verse,
along with Nana, Topper, Bamboo Blonde,
and The Mummy’s Curse.
Presidents led us in prayer,
Kipling was quoted in bars.
Underwear was under wear and there
were running boards on cars.
No one sported decals of his college.
People weren’t so classified.
We expected more from life than knowledge,
sorted, cut, and dried.
No seat belts then, no gun-free zones.
And no one wore a helmet on a bike.
But little girls kept memory books
where little friends wrote little verses like:
“A little health, a little wealth,
A little house and freedom,
A few good friends for certain ends,
And little use to need ‘em.”
Go back? Oh, no. The poor were really poor,
not like today,
and there were fewer possibilities
for work or play.
People died of scarlet fever.
Aspirin was our only pill.
And after forty everyone
was over the hill.
Technology has improved my health
but impaired my vision,
has increased my wealth
but sunk me in “a stupor of precision.”
So, I, pursued by no one
but remembering those looks,
have closed the door
and taken refuge in old books
defaced by doodles, dogears, coffee stains.
and runes no one can digitize.
They link me to another world
that I alone can realize.