SCIENCE FICTION POETRY

INTRODUCTION

A half century ago, Ray Bradbury envisioned screen entertainment as an enervating drug, portraying Montag’s wife in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) as a reality/interactive TV junkie who’s lost her social consciousness and her capacity to love. She spends her days in her room, which has television screens covering three walls. Her favorite show, The Family, includes her in the plot, and the characters sometimes turn to address her directly—a hypnotically meaningful thing for her. 

                      —pg 103, The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein

SWITCHING CHANNELS

When the tv’s on in your master bedroom

     you’re never alone;

      people speak to you

                                                offer advice.

  

When there’s a telephone on the night stand

       within reach

       there’s no need for a revolver

       under your pillow

                                                you have 911.

 When the bedroom door is locked

         the non-hologram man    from

         the next bedroom            over
         can not beam himself      in.

 He escapes his servitude        

           through  facebook and skype

  

But his therapist warns:

          kids                can not free themselves

          from               emotional incest       
          because          it lingers

          until realized.