My Precious

My Precious

Precious follows me into my dreams
dropping thoughts of other realms
mercurial shadows, ephemeral beings
creating grooves unwelcome.

Fear stagnates creative flow
scenes flit before my eyes
a never-ending horror show
filling senses full of dread, macabre lullaby.

For fear it is that feeds the beast
and keeps its prey in chains
invisible, at least in physical form
the mind is what it claims

And mind has mountains, true enough
with cliffs of frightful fall.
That man, he knew of what he wrote
when he offered up his poem.

But then was in a time before
much worse it has become
nothing left to imagination
now silent, rendered dumb.

It's all on-screen
this burning world
a seething pus that churns and turns 
sweet dreams to hellish furnace.

Collective angst reflected back
rejects the notion of peace
when endlessly, a constant attack
of hopelessness spews from screens.

We could take off the ring that binds
shut out the flaming eye
knowing this small, courageous act
would leave the enemy blinded.

But precious is far too clever for that
and draws us in each time
a drug that tethers body and soul
through addiction of the mind.

We could throw it into molten stream
returning to whence it came
but no one wants to be the first
to leave this deadly game.

So Beast continues to stalk at will
destroying what it touches 
access granted to gold within
by pushing all the right buttons.

Maybe the key is to start out small
five minutes here and there
look at a tree instead of a screen
and see what nature can share.

© Áine Fortune 2025

1. The man’s poem I refer to above, is by Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘No Worst, There Is None’. This poem was on my secondary school syllabus, the following lines of which, struck a chord with me, as an angst-ridden teenager, that has remained vibrating in the background of my life since…

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap / May who ne’er hung there.

2. ‘My Precious' was inspired by the image above, of Gollum with a mobile phone, which was posted by

   Clintavo
   as a note that went viral last Autumn, and which, he subsequently expanded into a brilliant short story, entitled ‘Your Precious’. I highly recommend reading it if you’re a device-addict, a fan of Lord of The Rings, mythology in general; all or none of the above. It is eerily insightful about the power we hold in hand and the power we hand over every time we put it on…

Your Precious