"Now That Phones Are With Them," by Hans Ostrom

 ("Is this a good time to call?" --Old Saying)


Now that phones are with them,
everywhere and always,
it is always
and never a good time to call. Life,
a series of interruptions,
has become a shattered series

of interrupted, re-continued,
dis-directed ruptures. Like
a batty princess to a frog,
people speak loudly at something
in their palms.  Confused
courtiers look on.

One hand's fingers
tap like spiders' legs
on plasti-glass surfaces.
Apps become vats
into which to pour
attention. Heads bent,

faces slack, eyes distracted:
people's minds leave their
bodies to go to that other space,
that cloud which is forever
and presently calling.


--hans ostrom 2014

Corporations Keep Rats

Corporations keep rats.
They keep them running.
The rats have some cash,
which they pay
the corporation for stuff
the corporations make.
Run there! Pay here!

The bait is technology.
Hey,rat, run after
the new eye-fone 18.3Z!
Pay cash first! Or
put it on a rat-card!

Imagine if the rats
turned around one day
and said, Rat Master,
we don't want any
more stuff right now.
We like the look
of your throat. That's
what we want. For free.



hans ostrom 2013

May I Speak To the Past, Please?

I have no doubt that the mobile phone pictured at right will soon seem obsolete or even antique. Maybe it already is the former if not the latter. The velocity of technological obsolescence seems to increase every day. As I think I've noted before, I'm opposed to these wee phones because they discriminate against us thick-fingered ones. When I attempt to hit one button, I usually hit three. It takes me all day to send a two-line text message. I feel like a bear in a sewing-class.


Phoning the Past

I telephoned the past. The number
I reached was no longer in service,
and anyway I'd wanted to reach the past,
not a number. Just as well. What would
I have said? "Hello, I used to live there"?
"Please write me a letter of recommendation
for the future"? The past is a special effect.
When I think about it, it's right beside me.
I reach for it. Then it withdraws miles and
decades instantly, and I'm left in this
lumpy present, which is always beyond
its sell-by-date and curdling into the past.
I read history, but it's a sad substitute
for what happened. So, foolishly, I phoned.
Fine. I made a mistake. That's all in the past.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom