Acceleration Generation Regeneration Or Degeneration Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Terse verse rehearses Nature’s cycle sent
as curse hearse food for thought life’s answers sought
for four millenia or more - predicament
narcissistic of man shaman time-trap caught.

Face lost in crowd, once cowed, may soar unbowed
outside staged stages, mournful shadow phase,
brief briefcase hard luck history, dread cloud
forever present pillow night dismays.

Man’s no stranger to hustle bustle streets,
unrailed and yet derailed by accident,
disease, or time which harvests heartless beats
as often as those tuned to tenderment.

Rent must be paid for earthly tenement
from birth to earth berth threescore ten years taught,
taut tightrope led from dark, fed, darkness bent,
with best laid plans of mice and men cut short.

Ignore swift time rift, second-thoughts aloud,
ticked of some callendar of nights and days,
of ages rushed and crushed far more than wowed,
till Lethe drowns strife's sorrows from life's gaze.

'Unkindest cut of all' seems self-deceit's
travesty of chance earth birth has meant
for opportunities before the winding-sheet's
last laugh and rictus ends bewilderment.

The sum of knowledge - man's empowerment -
now doubles each decade, and this has wrought
scope for both hope, destruction; store saved, spent,
itself prepares fresh options, cyclic sport.

Invention, innovation, have allowed,
acceleration which might seem haste haze
to most, who'd cruise coast, choose not, will kow-towed,
or caught in fad, trend, fashion, transient craze.

Unprecedented upgrade mankind meets,
greets multi-modal gene switch tripped, yet ought
take time out, flout race, rush outface; crush cheats
new world more slave than brave, wave’s bore grave fraught.

Moore’s Law's extrapolations represent
not only chips more powerful to sport
networked communications excellent,
they challenge base assumptions 'heaven sent'.

Concern to channel causal temperament
may seem as dream to stumblers on time bought,
but bumbling being bubble bursts, has wrent
tissues, rewiring brain sheath substance - sort
of myelin, white matter supplement
to speed synaptic links as swiflty caught,
relayed, as thought by neurones excellent
whose store depends on practice or to naught
is brought by lapse which traps experiment.

Bewilderment seems signature for most
who means can't steer to ends whose causal tick
beyond the click of mice and men mere ghost
appear to veer haphazardly, fall sick,
lose sight of goals, won't strive, prefer to coast
then perish caring scarce a fiddlestick
for those behind who raise sham, futile toast
to life vain strife perpetuates - lipstick
gloss to hide loss of unused gifts they lick
to mask frustration, stress, quick nervous tic.