Pitaya

now the flaming green wings

   and rubicund circumference of the dragon

   might be a sight to draw awe or fright

 

and being smooth to touch curved and rubbery

   not mailed or plate-scaled or fire-breathing

   tests expectations and analogies

 

yet is neither exploding hand grenade

   nor tasselled psychedelic boombox

   split with a cleaver or tomahawk

 

it’s cactus its compacted aroma

   quintessence of tropic rainfall

   inside out of great scale persistent heat

 

its contracted reservoir mild sweetness

   anodyne soothing like so much to be said

   the opposite of what we assumed

 

iPhone

 

Starless and Babel black oblong keepsake

claw grip upways a prod springs colour,

universe in universal remake

your own self holds, palm reading futures.

Charge up the silicon valley of debt!

Each one its own start-up datacentre,

candid camera private details net

nonstop news c/- rich tech inventors.

Who is this I who phones each one of us

in breathless apps clocks email spendthrift spam

updating itself with no further discuss?

Lock, stock and barrel passwords’ great I Am.

Colours chart back to black times repeated

taking IDs contacts not deleted.

 

Smartphone

 

Not shoe phone, smartphone each its very own,

an eye, ready retina, a cyclops.

Like an old dog with a new bone

no wires or static but qwerty nonstops.

Smartarsed, a very stable genius,

an individual of aptitudes:

pictures by the second to extremis

with downloadable attitudes.

Each individual smart as the next

curls in corners, finds gaze, flicks fixes flat

the life stream into babylons of text,

dreams now locations, indulges in chat:

to your own selfie be true multicelled!

The end of the world is at hand, handheld.