Pandora's Box Unlocks
With prosperous public to politics wed,
privacy's threatened, it can't be gainsaid.
Consumer protection is often misled
by headlines enticing and small print widespread.
Set in strip lighting, or spoken, or read,
through radio, T.V., broadcasted in bed.
Nor ever has Internet, spammed, been immune,
text message records, repeats, slick slogan, tune.
Printed in polychrome over our head,
in so many senses, for senseless fathead,
over the airwaves judiciously spread
from high ultra-violet to low infra-red,
pasted on posters in blue, black, or red,
advertisement squares all our savings have bled.
The first time I set eyes upon square screen
was for the Coronation of the Queen,
the room was packed with neighbours far and wide,
sardines with scarce a breathing space inside.
But that was almost sixty years ago,
since then from novelty we've seen it grow
from monochrome to tri-di spy immersion
subliminal for and against subversion
to cover acres as necessity
acting for good and ill till cecity
swallows sight, with insight's déjà vu
quite compromised, disinformation too
blatant to ignore which rumour pours
upon mass and seeps through skin deep pores
polluting much, for such appears a lot
of Public Mission with both words forgot.
It's difficult to talk about the 'box'
ignoring all its spread in fact unlocks.
Here 'News' from global village in real time,
there sights and sounds of peaks men mean to climb.
Convergency has helped it piggy-back
on Internet that some folk love to hack,
as streaming waves however they're defined,
all senses of the term, we must remind
ourselves that impacts follow paths to logic strange
as here they help and there their feeds derange.
One thing is certain, advertising space
has cut attention spans yet leaves slight trace
of passing through collective consciousness
to leave John Doe in quite a pretty mess.
This essay could continue till each cow
comes home, they roam on many pastures now,
the arguments both pro and con should be
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poem by Jonathan Robin
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