No Fixed Address Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Every spot on earth has its unique co-ordinates
Of latitude and longitude. Are people so lucky?
Not so; they are like particles of gas in a chamber,
With no fixed address,
Ever moving, ever changing,
Always nameless.

It is an ungrateful age when artists, poets and minstrels,
Even speakers with the gift of lofty utterance,
Are at the mercy of the knob, the ‘remote', the ‘delete' device.
If they do not turn you on, you can turn them off.
You can refuse to submit to their momentary enchantment.
Those who deny or dismiss enchantment
Are the true philistines, howsoever they laud
The genius in art or music or literature;
Even if as culture-vultures
They snobbishly fake enchantment.