Talking Microchips Poem by Patrick Monamodi

I come from yesterday,
when echoes burned
and microchips had little to say.

Now they speak.
And so do I.

Yesterday, I held a pen
and carried a pad—
a foolscap notepad,
not an electronic iPad.

That is how sophisticated I was
as a young lad.
Don't be mad!

Mama's cursive calligraphy
danced on slate,
a mere metamorphic plate.
That was her technology back in the day, Mom!

As for Daddy,
his tale was tougher still.
Innovation reached him rather late,
yet somehow
he ensured that
eight of us always
ate from eight plates.
Pops!

Then, one day,
a sad, sluggish snail
slid into our home,
carrying sorrow
in a shell of post:

'Granny is late.'

Not just a shell—
a bombshell indeed!

I froze, wondering
why the news had not travelled
over the airwaves
days ago.

'The typewriter had broken'—
a nonchalant excuse
to let the matter go.

So we buried the truth
in snail mail
instead of broadcasting it
through static radio waves.

Pathetic!

That summer,
my acumen grew exponentially.

I left behind the crew
who used bottle tops
to learn multiplication.

Now I could slice arithmetic
from complex calculations,
call out chemicals
like cold cousins,
yet remain a cripple
when it came to the glamour of grammar.

I was a scientist—
a silent one.

My high-school examination
officially confirmed the fact.

Back then,
telephone tails were tightly tied to walls,
and every tale they told
had strings attached.
Literally.

Many moons before
new tools with Platonic tendencies emerged—
tools that pick pixels instead of pigments
to paint perfect brands.

Gadgets grind gigabytes
to guide speech,
speak our slang,
and brand our brains
with twisted truths.

We are enlightened and informed,
confused and misinformed—
all that, and more,
in a single click!

Enter!

And yet,
in that void of formless cyberspace,
wisdom spoke:

'Let there be light! '

And light broke in, all right!

Not merely a smouldering glow,
but blazing glory:

Websites, e-books, blogs, AI, and wits—
like libraries, lecture halls,
and journals,
lit by technology.

Darkness is sliced into dawn.

Brilliant minds now merge
and erect platforms for communication,
where the physical meets
digital data streams,
cultures converge,
and voices beam
through silicon halls.

A global village,
in digital design, indeed!

Here, syllables bubble
through multiplexers like streams.

These are the Days of Our Lives
on download,
where mothers
and motherboards
raise children alike,
and machines
schmooze with the souls of men.

Allowing both microchips
and silent scientists
to talk!