Technology

    The gadget in my hand is a dear friend.

With it I can text and call anyone at almost anytime anywhere.
I can take and send pictures in a flash. I can check emails or
surf the web. I can listen to music or watch a movie or read a
book. I can buy and sell things. I can poke anyone.

    The gadget in my hand is a dread foe.

With it on my ear, my brain imbues the waves and mutates. In
my hand as I drive, I take a difficult and challenging task and
double the complexity, turning the vehicle into a menace. I can
ignore my wife, my parents, my kids, my friends by hunting and
pecking all the day long.

Screens, screens, screens, screens, screens, screens!

     The gadget in my hand is a sticky magnet.

With it, I can be followed as I wander my meandering path through
the city. As I troll the web, lingering on this or that, I can be
recorded. As I buy things, they take careful note of everything.

     The gadget in my hand is a high-story elevator.

With it, the public schools replete with tablets and smart-boards
launch classrooms into the twenty-first century. The tech gap
crushed and equal education for all. Maybe,  perhaps, I hope.

     The gadget in my hand is an open window.

With it, I can be scrutinized, analyzed, defined, invaded, dissected,
cored, correlated, and vivisected. With it, I am the body on the
slab in the cop show, carefully rendered to give answers.

Screens, screens, screens, screens, screens, screens!

     The gadget in my hand is a gas pump with a lighter.

With it, I can flare the greatest explosion and bonfire ever seen.
With this program and that, my creativity can know no bounds.
The knowledge at my fingertips is quite literally endless.

     The gadget in my hand is a soaked blanket.

With it, I can stare at episode after episode of old reruns. I can
play 'Doom' until dawn, shooting and maiming thousands of digital
people. I can watch bodies of all types writhe and contort.

Screens, screens, screens, screens, screens, screens!

The gadget in my hand is no yoyo, it’s not a rubber ball, and
                               ain’t no thimble.

The gadget in my hand is a boomerang,
                                                          whirling through the air,
                                   three centuries of engineering behind it.

You should be ready to duck…

© Byron Harris, 2013

Texting While at the Wheel
Photo by Oregon Dept. of Transportation
from Wikimedia Commons