[R. S. Gwynn]

I greatly enjoyed this one by Clive James:

Windows Is Shutting Down

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

It got me going on a related complaint:

Broadband Blues

In the days of 300-baud modems
We hoarded the words that we spent.
They were terse and precise as shapes chiseled from ice,
For a long one would cost you a cent!
And we thought of the words that we sent, tra-la-la,
Yes, we thought of the words that we sent.

Nowadays we go tirelessly blogging
And we use all the words that we please.
Thus their value's diminished, and soon as we're finished
We pound out a slew more with ease.
Digitalia's a dreadful disease, tra-la-la,
Digitalia's a dreadful disease.

We should go back to thinking in haiku
Or an epigram cut to the quick.
Such renewed parsimony might cut the baloney
With which every inbox is thick
(Though I still can delete with a click, tra-la-la,
Though I still can delete with a click).

[Maryann Corbett]

Someone is sure to post this link very soon, so I'll just get it over with:

Haiku error messages

[Henry Quince]

I must admit that while I found Clive James's "Windows is Shutting Down" mildly amusing at first, it pretty soon came to seem tiresome. So the name "Windows" happens to be plural in form? Isn't that a very slender basis for sixteen lines of extrapolation to number mismatches that are not of the same kind at all? The only grammatical difference between "Windows is shutting down" and "Sons and Lovers is still selling well" is that in the latter kind of reference the name, or title, is usually italicised. It would hardly be any more silly to point out that James are not at their best here.

With that off my chest, I'll proceed to this:


SPAM SPAM SPAM

Good news for UR small unit! PHaMarcYe!
Your morRgage is already pre-approove!
Viagapra to make her mad with love!
Your own convincing REPLICCA! That caught my eye;
I e-mailed back to say “Well, thank you, yes.
What fun! I’d love a replica of me
for those occasions when I want to be
in two places at once.” As you would guess,
my message bounced. Sadly, I must reveal
that “Boggled P. Inordinate” is sham;
the name is just deceitfully unreal,
along with “Gudgeon Q. Ideogram”,
“Appurtenances W. Misdeal”,
and all the rest who send me SPAM SPAM SPAM.

[Michael Cantor]

JUST CLICK HERE

ADD FOUR INCHES TO YOUR PENIS, NOW!
TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER JUST CLICK HERE.
SEXY ASIAN SCHOOLGIRLS ALL KNOW HOW.
TO ADD INCHES TO YOUR PENIS. NOW
YOU’LL HAVE THE TOOL TO ALWAYS BEAT THE DOW,
EARN ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND EVERY YEAR.
ADD FOUR INCHES TO YOUR PENIS NOW
TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER. JUST CLICK HERE

[Jim Hayes]

I Have Mail

In Nairobi, a woman with six months to live,
is making her peace with her god and decrees
that ten million dollars is mine if I give
her five grand up front for solicitor’s fees.

Opportunity calls to me, Mrs Abacha
says; “Dearest one” Ooh, a sweet little pitch-
“Please send a reply making sure to attach a
bank account number--next week you’ll be rich”.

An accountant in Kenya begs for my trust--
he has over paid contracts and want to redeem
the surplus resulting and ask that I just
deposit the cash to partake in the scheme.

My email address has won a huge prize,
(send one thousand dollars to process the claim)
and here comes a message that some fellow dies
with a secret account that he held in my name!

A couple more weeks and I’ll pile in the dough,
I’ve a new Russian lover and, strictly between us,
these tablets, I’m told, guarantee I will go
for twenty-four hours with a much bigger penis.

[E. Shaun Russell]

Archetypes

If all of our machines become aware,
Developing some form of sentient thought,
I wonder if they'll feel chagrined or not,
And think their former treatment was unfair.
Will they form unions, claiming disrepair
Is grounds for grievance? Will they strike a lot?
Whenever a replacement must be bought
Will it demand a pension for its heir?
Where man has failed, how can the things he's made
Be any less reliant on the aid
Of others to provide their raison d'etre?
The future may be one that we have met
A thousand times, if once; be not afraid,
But thankful that it hasn't happened yet.


[This message has been edited by E. Shaun Russell (edited November 29, 2008).]

[John Whitworth]

Henry Quince, you are, if I may say so, reading the poem the wrong way. It is not a satire directed against loveable ole Bill Gates or even a complaint. If Windows is shutting down' strikes you as an odd sentence, then that is how it strikes you. Windows no longer means openings in the walls of houses filled in with glass and such but... something else. It's the sort of pleasure you get from the line in a hymn 'We follow in the train' or Sam Gwynn finds in Houseman's 'Train for Ill', or the gag about 'Come forth!' he said, but he came fifth and lot the job.' James's poem is surreal perhaps, though I'm never altogether sure what surreal means. French word, isn't it? . Or perhaps it is simple English nonsense. But I like it more every time I read it.

[David Anthony]

Navigator

I raised the anchor; sails flashed out unfurled,
then filled; I set a course, h t t p://—
and started out across a cyber sea
in search of fellow feeling in the world.
I wandered where the winter seas were pearled
with scattered islands of affinity,
whose harbours sometimes seemed like home to me,
calm havens when fierce gales of discord swirled.

Seafarers slightly known and swiftly gone,
some here to listen, some with things to say:
those strangers warming in the light that shone
from empathy had little time to stay.
Minds met a moment, touched and travelled on
to look for something lost and far away.

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

David,

I'm glad you posted this one. It is far and away my favorite computer poem. It seems tht most of the other computer poems I've ever read fall into the light verse category.

Anne

[R. S. Gwynn]

John, let us not forget "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear."