Byron wouldn’t have stood a chance

if the world of his time had the mass media

exposure, constant Google up-load

and Facebook name and shame being urged upon

by the two a.m. giggle fit of the warm and instantly forgiven

rant telling like it is, and the recriminations of the following

morning text, you know what you called him girl?

 

He may have revelled for a while, more so than Percy,

in the hashtag-moustached hag, mad, bad and dangerous

to know, but would have been concerned

that the photo of his private members bill,

taken one cold night when the windows rattled with the wind

by a posing young 20 year old girl, who actually

was a hardened blogger out to get a million likes

from the Spanish Steps

to London and all dances between

romances to the once hero of Greece.

 

The attention would have disagreed with Bysshe

but it has to be said that Mary would have been thrilled

by the proclamations of support

from the team Woolstencraft that filled her in box

more than those tipping their hat to team Shelley.

Mad, bad and dangerous to know at hashtag, sleeps with everyone

you’re not special grrr Sundays dot com,

Byron would have seen the rise of the critic

as his downfall and would have told Mary

that her invention of Frankenstein

was nothing more than a personification

of the state of mind bought on by the three million likes

under the header, Byron is a monster.

 

The stormy night in which the creature was let loose upon the world

was nothing more the instagram of him

swimming naked the previous Friday evening

taken with wide angle lens despite the court order

banning the paparazzi from being within a mile

of the house, they must have hacked my pigeon post

he would rage.

 

No, Byron would have wilted and left the stage,

his once noble frame defined by the public outcry

of those who he never bedded, of the drugs he never took

and like that other target of social media damnation,

Richard the Third, the questions of his love life

and what exactly he was doing with the Princess

that Thursday afternoon for the pictures show

he wasn’t registered to show them porn

and his account had been blocked, the mass media

would have had their day.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015