The optional objective for Day 17 of Na/GloPoWriMo 2020 is to write a poem incorporating a ‘forgotten’ technology.   Well, my choice is not so much as forgotten but once a has been yet now a collectible among some.

Retroactive Kaleidoscope
by Michael Doyle

In these days laced with twists of hope
Then fear, I find my mind a kaleidoscope
Thinking back on my wild side childhood
With it's savorings of both bad and good

It seems what I remember most is the sound
Tracked in my mind wherever feet found ground
My mind ventures back to when my sister would
Collect 45 records of favorites when she could

Now millennial hipsters find a need to indulge
Mainly to prevent the dreaded wallet bulge
Deifying aural ghosts of a time long since past
As if realizing that put on angst won't last

Living in drive by in a digitally driven age
Desperately in need of some sort of a sage
We find a time and reason that isn't economy
Mindfully aware of the failings of Silicon Valley

To fully fulfill the needs hungering in our souls
Played out in nostalgia on the portable consoles
Luddites of sound move beyond questions of capacity
Finding in vinyl a sense that surpasses capability

I don't believe its any sort of temporal mistake
To find a need for the artisanal in what we bake
Sun stroked in a thought mistaken for brilliance
In times like these, the living need resilience

We grasp for what can be fixed, remade and saved
In a world of planned obsolescence we've caved
Burrowing into the that which we can believe in
There is something in the permanence that is Zen 

(c) April 17, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved