The Misfortune Teller ("At the Influence Dispensary")

They fling around trite acronyms they think
will stimulate emotions, not the brain.
The keyboard, they suppose, like pen and ink,

can blunt the sword or aggravate a pain.
The cellphone now, ubiquitous and cheap,
says "It" failed twenty times. So, try again!

Download the app: "This time for sure." Asleep
to what the gambler's fallacy has taught
us Veterans who lived through Mission Creep

in Southeast or in Western Asia fought
for fools mistaking grimaces for grins.
His sycophants say what they know they ought.

No matter how He always says he "wins."
That's mere projection of His many sins.

"Influencers," they're the key (I've heard of late)
who offer their opinions on The Web.
They tell us whom they love and whom they hate,

like tides that twice a day first flow then ebb.
If told the news from Spain of migrant hordes,
they couldn't locate on a map Maghreb

or even Africa. Too far for "Lords"
of "Social Media" to tell a gnat
from elephant quadruplets. Hence awards

for "perspicuity," they've cursed and spat.
Unlike The Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser's,
the Texans say: "No cattle but all hat."

These anti-social influence dispensers
Seem more like paid or self-appointed censors.