IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
Prometheus Reconsidered
A Poem
Prometheus, misnamed master tinkerer,
progenitor of a creative class,
chained to a rock like John Jandali,
wanting in forethoughtfulness,
Was it wise to trust me with such a powerful force in the palm of my hand?
The prideful Luddites — perhaps we have misjudged them —
laboring in some garment factory,
fearing replacement by machines, not simply hating technology.
Was what the Bard said of drink equally true of screen time today:
that so far as performance comes and goes,
it “provokes the desire but takes away,”
longing for actuality, but experiencing a simulacrum, actually?
Enticing us with less a jolt of adrenaline,
more a constant drip of dopamine, more
light glimmering into the mind’s eye than
wind in hair, dirt in toes, sun on skin.
Were I to return clear and free
to a state of existence outside the reaches of digital technology,
where even might I begin, and to what end:
hung like John the Savage outside the walls of the World State?
In my thought experiment,
safe with no risk of eviction from my community,
not suffering in isolation to contemplate,
rather, just a glissando of great magnitude,
Taking us from the new century back
before recapitulation to tactile pleasures in the natural world,
back to the way we lived before von Neumann began to deliberate
upon a Pandora’s box of CPUs evolving into a psychological state,
My new old life would awaken to a clock radio —
no Gerhard Lengeling theme,
a Franklin Planner,
no shared calendars or apps to drive productivity,
No thumb to glass, but pen to paper,
no backspaces, just scratch-throughs,
composing and rearranging inside my head
before committing to ink.
Blessed are the short-circuited by reels of
TikTok videos lasting into eternity,
for they shall inherit, in conflict of tradition,
the singularity.
Perhaps we misjudge them —
they who wish for dignity at fair pay —
and children who on most days
leave the confines of the house to feel
wind in hair, dirt in toes, sun on skin.
