Kavana at Noon

Why is it that we get everything wrong?
Why is it that technology has wrapped its cords round our neck, raped and unmanned us,
and left us in the closet, asphyxiating on our own sex drives and vomit capitulated
in a stream of radiation and bliss which mows us down
pissing on our humanity and we - mute as a clown - watching it get dragged farther
and farther away...
How sad it is for me to sit in a cafe, indescript and typical
watching children, girls not even 21
smoking and drinking coffee and talking
yes Talking-
did I stutter?
TALKING to each other, to me
even though I speak near none of their (my) language.
They send odd texts to get closer together
to meet up
They make phone calls, with their very own Voices
to make plans,
to keep plans
to be alive in each others presence.
Their phones work just as fast and efficiently as ours do.
But they still refuse to live as fast and inefficiently as we do.
They use this extremely modern technology simplistically
and it brings them closer together. Once they have achieved this:
it is back to talk, and food, and drink, and smoke and coffee
and laughter and mimicry and dark humor and ideas.
The technology sits back into its place,
and knows when to shut its trap.
Something is wrong with us.
I sit there, with young girls
who know more about being human beings than I.
But you see, I remember.
Its in my blood and it cannot be cut out,
no matter how hard you try, America.
Still, I sat in a cloud of macchiato and malboro reds
and thought about how I used to do this, more than a decade ago.
How I dont remember the last time I did, or tried, or was -like this.
Normalcy creeps in slowly, and I laugh again at who we think we are,
over there in that free world.  Hanging in the shadows of our closets
the cords of electronica slicing at our necks, as we turn away
from each other, and ourselves.

M. Lucia