Seen and Unseen

Seen and Unseen

Our facebook data is being sold off

to advertisers and worse, who use it

to discern our personal triggers

and pull them. Pow! Gotcha!

We know you’ll buy this

bag, book, training course….

Maybe. The real crims, though,

aren’t doing so well with me:

widow, clearly not young.

They offer me thickset men

in military uniforms, white-skinned, 

hair just slightly greying, wholesome.

The sort you’d have taken home,

once, to meet your mother. Ha! I know 

they are not truly the names or faces 

they show. And anyway, I never fell 

for the ones my parents approved –

doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists….

I look like such a sweet old lady,

posting photos of roses, messages

of peace and joy; liking cats, and a green

environment. They don’t see how I’m drawn 

to the shadow, the danger, the flame:

the unusual. The man in black.

Lean frame, long locks, dark skin. 

Antlered Cernunnos in the wild wood.

Black-haired Merlin, of the Old Folk.

The scintillating fae, who dance all night

in a glade among trees, lit by the moon.

Oh facebook, you know nothing.


Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Vision, which quotes Jonathan Swift as saying, “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

Soundcloud recording added 21 June 2019.