Eyes

When televisions first became household objects,
some people were scared to undress in front of them,
the convex and glaucomic eye staring,
pervert cyclops, invader in the living room.

These days of course the eyes are much smaller,
rectangular, and with us at all times, not just
when mother’s home with fish-and-chips to eat before
a black-and-white broadcast. Eyes follow us about.

When I was young and gay, and gay, the unrestricted
internet reached out with slimy hands and claimed
a lot of naive boys and girls, the eyes
observing awful things and making images.

Technology is both awful and good;
above all, though, inevitable. A painful
rise to convergence that will with luck reduce our pain.
But always, yet, always, the eyes are watching us undress.