JARGON

Is it the world that´s changing, or is it just me?
I am feeling tremendously lost now and all at sea,
I used to speak English a long, long time ago,
Taught consonants and vowels with a mouth like an O,
Then came my teens with the words “groovy- hip- and cool”,
I´d Left behind the grammar and poetry at school.

Hot-breathing passionate words in lover’s sweet ear,
Romantic sonnets and odes whispered dangerously near,
The wedding´s “I do”, babes gurgling, & toddlers’ words spat,
Repeating nursery rhymes and stories with kiddies on my lap,
Years passed by and going, took with it my ancient tongue,
I now live in another world, totally dominated by the young.

Now it´s all words that are new and that I don´t understand,
“Give me high five”, when I proffer my confused waiting hand,
Now it´s all, stoked-scratched-tron-troll-coolio and wangsters,
In my day it was easy, excited-pot-troll-dolls and gangsters,
As for being trashed, the tron, the hood-rat or the phat-cat,
It is an undeniable fact, “Who knows dude, I aint where it´s at”.

Now they´re telling me that “sick” means good, or so they say,
Not the running nose, high fever and taking off a sickie day,
“Vajazzled “just leaves me timid & extremely stressed & frazzled,
And the ching-ching of “bling” blinds me & leaves me bedazzled,
What on earth is wrong with words like, shine and gleam? I plea,
And, what happens in vajazzling when you really need to pee?

Then I´m asked if I have ever face-booked, twittered and blogged,
Oh dear, I ask myself, is man now really lost or is he just merely fogged?
Now, backed into a corner, I´m forced to face-book, but certainly not for fun,
It´s just to be able to trace the whereabouts of my travelling errant son,
I ask you, is it normal to have an invisible untouchable friend?
When I did as a child, I was told to behave and not to lie & pretend.

Then we come to the ticks, clicks, tweaks and links, just to add to my stress,
I’ve got to the stage, that with the click of a button, my life is officially a mess,
I think I will stick with books, either sepia old, or those with crisp new pages,
And I think that instead of tweeting, I´ll listen to the voices of wise old sages,
Please, I beg, leave me be, leave me alone in my own little foreign place,
That place where to me, a book is still just a book and face is simply a face.

Face book is not just one word, at school; I was taught they were two,
And tweeting belongs to the birds, not to humans like me and to you,
And as for a blog? What has happened to the art of simple conversation?
Our young folk today are being reared in a solitary and virtual nation,
Wouldn’t it be lovely to give them fresh air and freedom in which to play?
And to bestow upon them, stories, poetry, and lovely words to sing & say.

Not to mention accents, Spanglish, Gibraltan Llanito, patois & Creole,
Not even the words we´ve adopted from neighbours like siesta & rissole,
Admittedly I´m flummoxed, thinking a tablet was the pill I took every morning,
But just found out, it´s a new gadget, sprung on me without any due warning,
Oh for those days of saying of saying please & thank you, pardon & good-day.
Now foreign holidays have brought us words like danke, oui, fandango and ole´.

Tell me please, what is the I-pad, the I-pod, the E-book, kindle & App?
Proof to the young, who are laughing now, that I´m, an utterly total prat,
“But don give me no grief bro, coz am bizzy chillin and totally hangin,
Wit ma homies an I don need from yo, no leccha, an no head bangin”,
So, I ask you please to just leave me alone, because I am happy being me,
The old dinosaur lady, with a good old book & nice hot cup of tea.

And what´s with this power point, acupuncture or some such thing?
And the smiley faces, the hearts, the squiggles & cards that sing?
Faceless friends I´ve never met, sending chain mail with threats,
If you don´t send this on you´ll be poor or die & it aint no joke,
And please you guys out there, what do you mean you want a poke?
I´ll leave the web to the spiders, this lady is not for poking. Init, wot?

© Sue Lobo 2015

Response to our Inspiration Call on June 4, 2015
www.facebook.com/Creativetalentsunleashed

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: © Brooke Fasani Auchincloss/Corbis