Poetry on the Internet

By John Grey

It's the twenty first century

and songs are so small

you can plug them in your ear.

Anna could have imagined so much

walking across the car-park

but instead is speaking on a cell-phone

to someone with nothing to say.

Only the crazy read books,

Only the insane parade their mental crises

up and down the halls of art galleries.

And poetry's so dead

they teach it in schools.

From my house in Rhode Island

to the mutilated of Baghdad

is a push of a button away.

I'm broadband, I'm wireless,

the new century's version

of off-hand and feckless.

The widow of the ex-finance minister

of Nigeria needs my help.

Strangers offer to make my penis grow

though I could be a woman

for all they know.

It' s the twenty first century

and all politics is no longer local

but vocal.

And thanks to GPS,

I can't get lost while driving.

Kids just born to the right families

are already campaigning for president.

And computers are writing books

for other computers to read.

And the art galleries have been closed off

so the inmates can't escape.

And poetry's so dead,

it’s buried everywhere.