TEXTUAL PARALYSIS

Commercially Friday

Though technically Thursday still

Immobile technologically

We sit… for

God knows how long

God has an App

What we like about this chap

Or so we are led to deceive 

Is his authenticity

His mendacity 

Is no bar to Offices of State clearly

In Block Capitals: a double shot of extra 

SINCERITY!!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here before

And yet we do it again 

Suspended inert between persons pending

In coffee shops we suck up sugar and suspense

And wait in lines that grow longer

As gig economy refugees

Squashed five at a time 

Behind teeny tiny counters attempt to serve

Delicious Creamy Theatre of the Dispossessed 

In matching T-shirts

Our very being upstairs is tenuous

The absence of service provision that tells 

That gives context to isolation and instructs 

That causes concern

Action requires Patience

A commodity that acquires capital while-u-queue

Blue Tooth visibility high

All contact via eyes evaded 

It is a device

At no point is gaze raised from the screen

Counter-measures deemed sure-fire

An SMS is launched 

An aerial assault of rounded boldness: 

Hello X. I was at Cafe @ for 10 mins

And another: 

Seems u were not there. So I came out

The page more vital 

Than a social performance that passes for time

The virtual more real than actual 

Apparent but unfeasible

Present, but unviable

Unplugged

Unvirtualised

Unghosted

I bound past 

Later, a sub-text 

Primed with latent intent: 

I am an automated response mechanism

Thank u 4 yr message. Have an awesome Black Friday!

Loud applause, pause…

for special effects.