Flow Wellington's Poem

Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 2, Number 2. November 2019. ISSN: 2581-7094



Moving within time

These are the times, they warn:
The beginning of the end, and the dawn of all things sinister -
As if we didn’t bring ourselves here.

How heavy the self-righteous cloud hangs
While the touch of any button serves our need for instant gratification –
But, look how robots are stealing our jobs!

Somewhere between plastic wastelands and towering landfills
We’re sifting our prayers for survival through long-lens cameras
And the most fitting humanitarian selfies.

This is the best time to be alive, they claim…

We measure beauty among the straight lines of concrete jungles;
Marvel at the majesty of endangered species as they roam
Freely in their barb-wired enclosures.

Here we are losing touch, losing faith, losing face
Pretending to know more of who we are and where we’re heading,
As search engines provide enough knickknacks to piece a new existence.

Somewhere a Healer holds council over a Skype call,
Searching for resolution among digitised smoke signals and algorithmed bones –
Which century of Ancestors will reply?

Are they, too, moving with the times?