A short history of the microphone

In the fifties they were chrome,
glinting like executive toys.

In the sixties they sang
through mosquito nets.

By the eighties they were
shaped like ash-laden cigars.

The nineties saw the headset:
worn whilst dancing

like a call centre employee
who has hit their target.

Today, the mic,
its familiar abbreviation,

is the shape of a one-scoop.
Sometimes on windy days

you may still see someone
making do

with their hands turned
to a traffic cone

trying, in vain,
to get themsleves heard.