Like Cybernetic Bees

Buzzingly busy tripping
on their pollinating vectors
like cybernetic bees
collecting internetted nectar

       they cruised the floral fields
       of the whirling worldwide web
       in search of “something better”

but all too predictably
— as sure as this web got infected
with the scourge of visibility filtering —

neither the promise of liberation
nor the dream  of decentralization
were ever what it wound up delivering

nor was it anywhere near as free
as what the high-tech-hyping priests
had preached to the plebs it would be.


Then — as if to make matters worse
by adding insult to algorithmic injury —
along came the next-level curse
of a much greater data-centre'd spider

that spun an insidious even-wider web
and before long  they blindly decided
to hang with this spider instead

       the moment they chose
              to stay close to the hive
       by trading the voice in their head
              for the voice of the latest AI.


And before they knew it
all this shifting of digital pollen
                     from flower to flower

that arose from their scrolling
and swiping  and tapping and typing
                     at all conceivable hours

       no longer required them
              to pass their days and nights
       like cybernetic bees flitting about
       from app to app  and site to site

since pollination was now carried out
       by this entirely tireless  AI spider
whose tacit mission was to also ensure
       that the plebs never grew any wiser.