Key economy - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Words today are
how’d you say,
in sad retreat,
or obsolete?
They slide around
conducting sound,
deferent
to moving ground
where once they were
as referent
to common sense
as having common meaning;
misuses of
the proper case
in user space
are typically
so commonplace
they now create
a new taxonomy,
I even heard
a weak excuse
when sorely vexed
by cryptic text
which claimed
the cause
on mobile phones
was key economy!
That I’d like to see!
I’ll try a few;
now “?RU” means
“How are you?”
and “RUOK”
is obvious but what it says
precisely is I have to ask
you if you’re well,
so you can tell
me you’re OK, ok?
As 2 Y U’d?
I couldn’t make a guess,
unless you’d text’d
your state of health.
W?RU means
“where are you?”,
& HuRU? is
“who are you?”
& W?DoU? means
“whaddaya want?”
or “why do you ask?”.
I find it but
a thankless task
to try to read
a literal text,
I never was
a code adept;
in SMS
the message rests
between abbreviations,
it may be found
in common sounds
expressed in close conjunction,
or even worse,
the poets curse,
cryptic alliteration.
The tongue is called
textase, don’t ask me
what it’s meant to be,
the act itself is texting,
and not, you guessed,
as mundane as
just ‘sending text’,
the effect of texting is
being text’d.
Confused?
You are excused.
© I.D. Carswell