Fingertips

Lips dancing-numb

With ma-la electricity

Flavours of Sichuan pepper

Cinnamon and sesame

And I wonder if the book


I’m reading

Is the first time in science fiction

Human beings were called

Earthlings.

_

Greetings.

_

I’m reading

HG Wells in a Sichuan bistro

Tucked away in a side street

In Da Nang

Dumplings and noodles and

Old Herbert George believed

The height of Utopian cuisine

Was cold cuts and pâté,

Peaches and cream.

_

These men like

Gods

Discovering dimensions

Defeating discrimination and

Incrimination,

Poverty and exploitation -

These glorious near-naked

Almost-gods near Slough,

Looking upon their unexpected visitors

Escaping London for a holiday

And ending up in another dimension

(Much like reading a book)

1920’s Londoners suddenly transported to a

Utopia of freedom

Equality

Progress

Cold cuts and pâté.

_

And they call the visitors

Earthlings.

_

My chopsticks

Dunk a dumpling

Into spicy noodle broth

(Probably improperly)

And I use the entirety

Of human knowledge at my

Fingertips

To look up what writer

Of fiction beyond our world

First called us

Earthlings


And Google responds

Instantly and incorrectly.

_

Robert A Heinlein

In 1949.

_

Get fucked, Google.

_

This copy of

Men Like Gods

Found in a Vietnamese stationary shop

Tells me it was written in

1923 meaning

Old Herbert George beat Robert Anson

By a quarter of a century.

_

Search engines lost in space

Aside,

Disaster strikes my dinner

I’ve run out of noodles

Right as distinguished Mr Burleigh

Takes it for granted that

The Utopians speak English.

_


I glance down at my

English menu at a

Chinese restaurant in a

Vietnamese city and perhaps

I shouldn’t be so hard on

Distinguished Mr Burleigh.

_

I consider ordering more food

As I finish the last dumpling

Then head for the door,

Assuring smiling waitresses

Yes

I will leave a good review on Google.

_

I wander dusklit streets

Stumbling upon Buffalo Bar

Tiny chairs on the street corner

Negronis and Godfathers and

Huda beers and a

Long-suffering, silent old

Street dog who pads

Quietly over to rest himself

Against my shin, looking for pats

With his sad-eyed old silence.

_

As one hand pats the old dog,

The other flicks through

The book and the Utopians are telling

The Earthlings

How they dragged themselves out of

An Age of Confusion

Wasps and rotting fruit

Ecological destruction

An age of monstrous stupidity

Wastefulness and vulgarity

Crude and cruel subjection of the many

By the acquisitive and predatory

Few.

_

Phew.

_

Bit on the nose,

Old Herbert George.

_

Ice has long-since melted

Into my last

Drops of whisky and amaretto

And the owner smiles and shakes my hand

As I pay my bill and

Yes, I will leave a good review

On bloody Google,

That crushing giant

Bestowing dubious graces

Only on those who

Feed it

And I feel

Utopia is closer than we

Might think we

Might feel it

Only just

With outstretched

Fingertips

As it brushes past.