Old Poems I Dredged Up from the Internet

 I stumbled across these recently while wandering through the older corners of the web. They are mine, written back in 2001 when I apparently had a lot of feelings about computers and a lot of time to put them into verse. I am sharing them here partly for the sake of preservation, and partly because they still make me smile.

STARTUP (2001)

A flick of the switch, and it pulses to life.
Fans whirling, drives spinning
Electricity Imbibing.

This is the START
& I await the happy computer's greeting
will it start, will it stop, will it stall
...stall
...stall

Action, icons appear, bringing form to microscopic 0's and 1's
So begins the magical dance
as my clicks and drags manipulate and transform
the 0's to 1's and the 1's to 0's.

Form and function travel in the ether
contained from diode to diode.
Much too small to see, but it's there.
I smell it... I can taste it.

Have you tasted it lately?
You may have and not known it.

I cannot describe it; it changes so fast ...
technology ... changes ... everything ...even us.

INSTALLATION (2001)

It comes in a shiny package, all the cdroms are so bright.
GUARANTEED to make my computer run faster,
or so the marketing team writes.

I rip open the cellophane wrapping, and I fly high as a kite.
As I extract from the box a disc and manual, wrapped so tight.

I gleefully place the disc in my computer, everything seems so right.
After a twenty minute install, my excitement has reached its height.

I reboot the system, but all that returns is a small green light.
Now frustrated and hysterical, I prepare for a technical support fight.

All has not gone as planned and all is definitely not right.
After three hours with tech support, I send the software disc on a one-way flight.

As it sails across the room, trying to escape my sight...
I reflect on the shiny package, that has made this a hell-of-a-night!

For the record, Installation aged remarkably well. Twenty-three years later and the experience of opening promising software only to spend the night on hold with tech support remains painfully universal.