Poetry

Ten words or fewer,
Frictionless formats,
For unengaged brains.

Attributed to ancient mystics,
Scriptwriters’ creations,
And TED talk orations.

Designed to make you pause,
Admire the sharers’ virtue,
Signaling the fathoms of their minds,

As deep as the children’s end of the pool,
No. As a puddle, a droplet, a globule,
But nothing approaching a tear.

Mindless mindfulness,
Churned out daily,
Curdling the intellectual pantheon,

These 10 words will never be uttered:
My life changed course,
All thanks to a mindfulness meme.

It’s not hard to grow,
But it is hard to harvest.
Only two threads per flower,
All of them handpicked.
Hands are what make it so valuable.

The warmth of your paella comes from sun-baked skin,
The luminosity of your rice from bright eyes,
The musty smokiness of your stew from another’s sweat.

From their hand to your mouth.
From Kashmir to Kensington.
One person feeds another
across continents.

A pebble thrown into an empty pot rattles,
Ricocheting around the void,
Clinking, clanking, echoing.

The social media activist prattles,
A single thought bouncing around his mind,
Typing, posting, retweeting.

There is no nuance,
There is no delete,
His dedication is absolute,
Unless he has to use his feet.

Asked a pointless hypothetical,
Deployed as a ruse,
To score the lead headline,
on the evening news.

The May-bot fluffed it,
A tweetstorm ensued,
Leave and Remain activists,
Need no excuse to feud.

While politicians strategise,
About which Brexit to pursue,
Their chess moves are pointless,
Talk radio’s playing Buckaroo.