To Nina


                           once
                          upon
                          a time

19 hundred 68 is over
            is thin politics
        dashed, disconnected,
 diachronicity
              indicating
 technology’s noisy cataclysm
& flashing strobe
            boxed in a dusty garage

19 hundred 98 is over
            is how to scratch
     the future
             when it’s gone,
     thinking pastness
                         is up ahead

20 oh 8 is over
          is atmospheric brooding,
   interpretation rules
       the day, the weeks,
            years, the centuries

sliding in
         to hide beneath
the warmth of flock and shoddy,
   ruffling
          dust in the circuitry

20 ten
       is nothing else –
laser beam a pilot’s eyes,
              upstage an apocalypse,
my ten cent technophile
      you’re in my echo chamber,
                           my feedback loop

20 twelve
      is corporately social, filtered,
nothing deviant here,
             hop away now, recharge,
  unencumbered
      &
           unapologetic

Nina –
    an entry in a ledger,
                  all’s big data

Pam Brown

Pam Brown has published many chapbooks, pamphlets and full collections of poetry, most recently Stasis Shuffle (Hunter Publishers, 2021). She lives in a south Sydney suburb on reclaimed swampland on Gadigal Country.

More by Pam Brown ›

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