Social Networking
        (in memory of Ray Bradbury)

          Facebook, for me, is not much fun,
as public as a nudist colony
                    where I have nothing on,
like a bad dream in which onlookers see

          my tongue-tied shyness magnified.
Exposure makes me blush. What can I do?
                    Strike back like Billy Budd?
Perch like a bird that's silent on a bough?

          Each naked sinner wears a mask
in a Surrealist Last Judgment scene:
                    flamingo plume or tusk
put on so profile photographs will stun.

          Fear of a booing crowd or fear
that no one gathers in this stadium
                    makes me want to go where
Innisfree supplants Byzantium.

          Thank goodness, none of it's in print.
What floats upon the screen's ephemeral,
                    easy to circumvent
by power outages, decline and fall.

          Thank goodness, Facebook's not a book
and no one's going to venture to the woods,
                    taking a daily walk
to learn by heart the pulsing of its words.

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Copyright © 2021 John Philip Drury All rights reserved
from Main Street Rag
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission