Poem of the Week

Tonight the fattened mermaids sing

To issue in the internet of things.

Let me tell you what you can do with that misnomer.

I sit here gloomily and think of Homer,

On the dimming beach, as drifts of trash

Clatter softly against my ankles,

The melancholy, long, withdrawing roar

Of everything a humanist holds dear.

Skyward the sad elite have all withdrawn,

To their electric world. They've pulled it on

Over the old like a transparent plastic glove.

I hear them pinging dismally afar.

Here on the quiet earth that I still love,

Where the last humans are.

Copyright © Sarah Tolmie 2018