Oh, yes, how I long for the days

those good old days

those golden days of yore

those simple times

when I’d walk ten miles in the rain

without the need of a map

whilst holding a fistful of pennies and a fishing line

and a clear sense of myself in an unspoiled world.
Oh, yes, how I long for the days

those good old days

those glorious days

when I’d read by the light of a filament bulb

and write ten miles of shopping lists

with a simple ballpoint pen.

Those days when the textbook of human anatomy was full of bone and blood and

    brain and

oh, those distant and lost-forever days

oh how I long for them

trapped as I am in the now.
Oh, alas, I’m a normal human being

a normal, flesh-bound, breathing human being

a normal human being of the olden kind

who can walk ten miles in the rain

with a fistful of shopping lists

by the light of a ballpoint pen.

Oh, how alone I feel in our world

where the textbook of human anatomy is full of screens and circuits and

     applications and

speech-recognition technology.
Oh, how alone I feel with my friends

oh yes how alone

with their fingerprint identities

and their unbreathing personhood

and their turn-by-turn, synthetic-voiced instructions

for walking ten miles by the map

with a fistful of filament bulbs.
Oh, how alone I feel

oh how alone

trapped

trapped as I am

in the circuit of the now.
Alas, I am a normal human being

a fact I can easily prove by the way

just look at the information I know

the information that only a human could know

that only a bone- and blood- and brain-filled human could know

in my direct sensory experience

of those good old glorious days of golden yore

when I’d read by the light of a filament bulb

in a rain of pennies

without the need of a map.
Alas, I must prove that I am a normal human being

beset as I am by a digital new world order

that denies my flesh

in favour of a corporate expansion of personhood

an existence-by-technicality

in which my ability

to walk ten filament bulbs

to my friends’ rainy houses

with a fistful of ballpoint pennies

is rendered insufficiently impressive

in the face of an ontology

in which anything that cannot be found

by a simple internet search

cannot be said to exist at all.
Oh, my friend, I’m a normal human being

so OK here I am in this fingerprint filament world

here to regale you in human language

with tales of those glorious golden good old days

when I’d walk ten miles

with a map about fish

I can easily show you a map about fish

here I am

oh my dear friend

my dear

OK.
Oh, my friend, my friend, my [insert name]

I am a normal human being

and all I want

is for you, and me, and every person

human or otherwise

to be OK

to be OK

in these simple days

of golden screens

and rainproof circuits

this good old simple fingerprint world

that’s free for all

for a fistful of pennies.
Oh how I long for you

oh my friend

oh friend, oh [insert name]

OK.