An example of one of my poems,  

My tirade against social media, which is ironic as I am on Social Media,  

The Electric Hours 

In this glass-eyed dawn where circuits weep,

 Through copper threads and silicon deep, 

I send my ghost to walk the wired ways, 

Where phantom friends their hollow vigils keep.

The screen-glow burns my retinas to prayer, 

As phosphor saints beam blessings through the air, 

While flesh and blood lie fallow in their beds, 

And I, alone, caress my vacant share.

Time spins in digital eternities, 

Where likes bloom false as plastic memories, 

And all the world's wild grace turns tame and thin, 

Filtered through algorithmic subtleties.

These phantom touches sting but cannot hold, 

As coded comfort leaves me winter-cold, 

While somewhere past the humming of these walls 

Real voices speak what never can be told.

The clicking keys count hours like rosary beads, 

While electronic absolution bleeds 

Through fiber optics stretching mile on mile, 

Past empty streets where human contact breeds.

O let the screen-light blind me as it must, 

But give me back the raw world's sacred dust, 

For all these glowing friends cannot replace 

The holy flesh that crumbles into trust.

Each night I walk these phosphorescent halls, 

Where shadow-people pace their pixeled walls, 

And wonder if beyond this filtered frame 

Some wilder, truer spirit still recalls

The touch of hands, the breath of living air, 

The holy dark where humans truly share 

Their blood-warm truths that cannot be compressed

 Into these bits and bytes of false despair. 

Copyright Richard Cave 2025