VIRTUALLY YOURS
A Prayer for the Web Generation
(with apologies to Shakespeare).
I have of late become quite sad
Spurn every form of exercise
How sterile, life without a lad
With fire in his eyes.
What piece of work is Internet!
How noble, full of reason
Facilitating admirably
Desirable liaisons
An angel with its wings unfurled
A god who is well-read
The greatest beauty in the world
An animal in bed
And yet, to me, these paragons
On inspection fall to dust
They delight me not, these sons
Of fantasy and lust
What angel? This Lothario
Has slept with half the town
The heavenly intellectual charmed
With words not quite his own
The Beauty’s from a magazine
The beast will not admit
The dirty-talker disappears
When it comes down to it.
O! Brave New Generation
Who ne’er composed a letter
Clever still, your fingertips
Do search for something better
Than the lad of yesterday
Whose likeness left you vexed
Or candidates along the way
Abandoned after sex
(Considering the time you’d waste
Investing in one man
You sleep with forty-nine in haste
Yet cannot find ‘The One’)
Thwarted by criteria
Of looks and cocks and age
How should one real person fare
When all the world’s your stage?
I have of late become quite sad
Spurn every form of exercise
How lonely, life without a lad
With fire in his eyes.
Image ‘Dirty Saint’ originally published in ‘Anthony Gayton – Behold the Man’, exhibition catalogue by MiTO, Spain.
