SOCIAL MEDIA VERSUS THE REAL WORLD by Bruce Hodder

Instead of plunging into social media
when I got to the bus stop on Kettering Road,
I pocketed my phone and looked around me.
People were passing in their cars and vans,
some yawning, some upright staring forwards,
like automata. One man picked his nails.
One woman talked to a girl beside her.
Above them in the still-bare winter trees,
two pigeons were having frantic sex.
It was the world, the real, the present, pulsing world
that changed each moment and was born again.
And I was part of it. I belonged to life.
Thrilled to feel the current flowing through me,
I took my phone out, clumsy in my haste,
and I told all my friends on Facebook.

Bruce Hodder lives with Michelle in Northampton, the most statistically average town in England. He has been published in quite a few magazines over the years, most recently ‘Academy of Heart and mind’ and ‘Winedrunk Sidewalk’.