This piece of Bad Poetry was produced by thinking about three things at one time: (1) the Poets & Storytellers United prompt, and (2) "The Noble Stinky Sestina" by Roland Caton, Scop Shop, 1984, and (3) the primary topic of noise in the news these days.
Let's consider the prospect of mind-numbing noise
coming out of the "data centers" the rich boys
would like to inflict on us all. It annoys
those who like to think, or want to sleep, that these joys
may be sacrificed merely to power the toys
that they don't even play with. The marketing ploys
engender resistance. "We CAN'T stop it?" Ploys
that serve their causes worse than unbroken white noise
are the efforts the rich make to market these toys.
If the rich boys can't stop it, we can, you rich boys!
What made you think that we'd give up all the joys
of quietness, coolness, and green? It annoys
us to be told we can't just say no. It annoys
us to be told we can't think, write, count, vote. Such ploys
are what cost Silicon Valley's party the joys
of Election Day. And will again. Useless noise
and the idea that we'll pay for what the rich boys
want to peddle, when we still have plenty of toys
of our own, if we want to waste time with mere toys.
Microsoft's marketing itself with what annoys
those who've not bought the latest junk that the rich boys
try to sell us. "Pay more for MORE wait time"? Such ploys
only could be conceived in a brain full of noise,
a mind that has never known quietness' joys.
People need space. Need sunlight. Need starlight. The joys
of the natural world aren't replaced by the toys
that spin, pop, beep, flash, and break down. All the noise
that the flatphones can offer still merely annoys
those who see right through silly and insolent ploys
that occur to the minds of the lazy rich boys.
They believe they are gods. They forget they are boys.
I look at them and picture them pleading for joys
they get by giving up, taking breaks. Frantic ploys
to extend every buzz are what inspire their toys.
They'd live longer by calming down. So it annoys
those who live longer to hear their furious noise.
I reject all the ploys that the stupid rich boys
make to market their noise while destroying our joys.
I reject all their toys. Don't care how that annoys!
Have you mailed any flatphones in your home back to the store, yet, Gentle Readers?
"They believe they are gods. They forget they are boys." - That about sums it up :)
ReplyDeleteYes indeed!!! (And I'm in awe of how wonderfully you kept up the rhyming.)
ReplyDeleteVery good rhyming Priscilla! A lot of thought must have been given for this! Well done!
ReplyDeleteHank
I second that Good writting
ReplyDeleteNicely written Priscilla 👏 What are flatphones?
ReplyDeleteIn the US, after the big clunky car phones and the pocket-size flip phones came the flat phones I'm sure the whole world has seen by now. Too big to fit in a pocket, lacking buttons so that people have to paw right at the screens, these things don't work as phones or computers or anything else but ways to expand "the cloud." If they're not being marketed in your country, yet, you're blessed.
DeleteThank you, Poets & Storytellers (blush).
ReplyDeleteI appreciate a good cocktail of righteous indignation stirred up with dollops of whimsy. It's one of my favorite drinks. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteYour words speak with relevancy to our times. It's a "not in my neighborhood" kind of thing. Problem is that a group dependency has formed and we all make use of these "rich boy toys" when we do anything online, including writing poetry.
ReplyDeleteTo some extent, maybe...but I'm using a computer with physical data storage to type this. Are you?
DeleteWhen only "cloud-based" computers can connect to the Internet, that's when we all need to drop out of the Internet and revert to pre-electronic publishing and communication. And the Internet will go crashing down. I hope that just saying no to any devices that lack physical storage (and wired, not "cloud-based," printing capability) will restore the Internet to viability...but we may have to let it crash.
lovely rhyming all the way... the one way street that we are on is all about data and the centres will be someone's garden—far away from the rich boys.
ReplyDeleteVery true...but the street is not as "one way" as they want us to think it is. Microsoft THINKS it's dictating how we all communicate. Microsoft is wrong. Microsoft is still a business that depends for its existence on what we, its customers, choose to buy or not buy.
DeleteThank you again, poets!
ReplyDeleteMaria's comment is especially relevant. Can the Internet be sustained without expanding "the cloud"? Well, the Internet got by without "the cloud" up until 2015. We CAN stick to using the Internet the way we used it before 2015. Yes, the companies are likely to be storing data about our use in "the cloud," but by saying no to flatphones, "apps," chipped vehicles or appliances, and "cloud-based" electronics without physical storage drives, we can reduce "cloud" use and send the corporations a message. I believe this is worth trying first--before we back out of the Internet altogether.
I believe it may become necessary, and it won't be as traumatic as we might think, to back out of the Internet altogether.
The "tech giants" WILL try to tell us that following China right over the cliff is "inevitable," that it's something they "have to" make happen. That's my point here. Gates and Zuckerberg and Bezos can't make it happen, actually, without us. It won't take a lot of people just saying no to get their intelligence redirected to the task of blowing away "the cloud" and helping China recover from this mistake just as we're trying to help them recover from Maoism.