The Prophet’s Voice (In Memoriam Dave Smith, 1950-2022)**

The future called, and you replied with recalled sounds,
those stored in polysynth design with quick renown.

Six-thousand units sold. In numbers, seems a meager
amount, but sundry artists heard, and were so eager

to tease the coming new wave age with synthesis,
the last of analog, before the digital bliss

few say that we now live. Not perfect, but revised
for every tech development, it advertised

that eighties life was here to stay, though perhaps, change
in little declines as from that time we’re estranged.

It isn’t that surprising Carpenteresque tones
returned in times of social media and drones.

We seek solace in memory of simpler times,
which even if it wasn’t simple, felt sublime.

How oscillator and microprocessor chips
affect more generations with learned craftsmanship!

“Let’s Go,” and “Drive,” among the cinematic scores
of Tangerine Dream, sequenced moves took on dancefloors

across the neon-stained nightclubs, and still the young
embraced this middle-aged mood as prophetic song.