Commuter Computer
Click, click; I’m on the train now; return key, no room again;
open file on pinching seats and select a moment when;
log on to episode history; I’m going to be stuck with standing
no function seems available for controlling and commanding.
Click, click; we’re on the move now, all sat in rows like androids
programmed into papers with their pictures and their factoids;
advanced search on My Documents, the best of times I’ve known,
think up security software for the virus called alone.
Click, click, the world is passing; Save Target As the view;
I’d put it in My Pictures if there was ever anything new.
Windows here and Windows there, the old zipped up mundaneity
virtually a million miles from virtual reality.
Click, click, I search for images, I search for sights and sites,
physically through the endless days and virtually through nights;
the adult checks, the video streams, the movies by the minute,
all my life’s a download and I am never in it.
Click, click, the final station; direction, office cell;
the programme now responding is one I know too well.
We mouse along the platform, but this is no play station,
it’s auto format for each life until its termination.
Click, click, I’m at my desk now, an online working gnome,
staring at a small glass screen just like I do at home.
Customise the file that’s me dressed in my working suit;
Save As a day like yesterday and eternally reboot.
