Radio compelled people
to pay attention
to what they heard
and listen carefully.
Movies isolated people
who sat alone in darkness,
glued rapturously
to the silver screen.
TV chained people at home
watching the revealed world,
a paltry substitute
for imagination.
The internet erased
international boundaries,
allowing users
world-wide exploration
anonymously,
mostly for trivia,
sometimes for science,
too often for evil,
unleashing new dangers
on the unprepared world.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press); Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press); Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines and Tremors (Winter Goose Publishing); and Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). His published novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Acts of Defiance (Artema Press), and Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing), as well as his short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced off Broadway. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.