So many folks today carrying cell phones
To augment the ones at home
Me, a single phone MORE than enough
The jarring ring always
Interrupting thoughts, fantasies and schemes.
Now, the added burden
Of all your cell phones -
"I'm on the bus. I'll be home in five minutes. Love you too."
Around they go
Clutching the noisy little machines
Scientists are saying
Will eventually eat a
Big cancerous hole
In their cluttered little heads:
All those mundane voices
At their fingertips
Squarely in the center of
Emptier and Emptier worlds
"I'm on the bus.
Love you, if you love me."
_
"I'm On the Bus" is excerpted from Wilken's Sweat Off the Diamond (2009).
Dennis Paul Wilken is a prolific poet, sketch-artist, veteran journalist and Senior Literary Editor for The Commonline Journal. He studied at the University of Cincinnati and is a former Staff Writer for Cincinnati Magazine. His poem "Outcomes" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. His first chapbook is called Sweat Off the Diamond (2009). His recent chapbook Poetry Factory (2017) is forthcoming from Imperative Papers.