A new poem on the 'tyrannical perfection' of modern life

Brian Bilston, the "unofficial poet laureate of twitter" is writing a series of poems on the theme of The Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is the third poem.

They will be wondering - by now - where I am.
It’s not like me to be home so late
on a Wednesday,

particularly one in September.
This will not be forgotten in a hurry.
I can sense their censure, even from here;

hear the hiss of the vegetables
as they soften
under the refrigerator’s cool stare

and the dark scowl of the coffee machine.
I should have called, not just left them
to their own devices.

But perhaps they already know
that I am in crisis,
observed tiny shifts in my behavior

of which even I was unaware;
the depth of my tread
upon the carpet,

or the slouching in my chair
from which I shall not leap up
to rescue a forgotten cake

or slowly hoist myself
to trudge to the corner shop.
Its milk cartons must serve another.

And no more shall my day start
with a blast of cold
to snatch my breath

as the shower wakes for morning
or a desperate stretch
for a toilet roll that is not there.

For everything is just so,
optimized
into tyrannical perfection,

a thousand decisions and revisions,
all the humdrumness of life
outsourced

to things far smarter than I.
And, in its place,
an absence

and this stretching of the hours.

Have you read?
The Alan Turing Prize for Poetry
A venn diagram poem on the future of work