Julia Griffin: Apple Song
(With apologies to Aaron Copland)
I bought me a Mouse,
My Mouse pleased me:
I used my Mouse with a USB;
My Mouse goes: "Apple ID!"
I caught me a Bug,
My Bug freaked me,
It locked my screen and enjoined a fee;
My Bug goes: "Con! Con!"
My Mouse goes: "Apple ID!"
I had me a Cow,
My Cow drained me:
I fear I cursed like an SOB;
My Cow goes: "Moo-oo! Moo-oo!"
My Bug goes: "Con! Con!"
My Mouse goes: "Apple ID!'
I called me Support,
Support heard me:
They seemed less shocked than I thought they'd be;
Support goes: "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?"
My Cow goes: "Noo-oo! Noo-oo!"
My Bug goes "Gone! Gone!"
My Mouse goes: "Apple ID!"
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
L. A. Mereoie: Witticism Isn’t Criticism
Jenny read me when we met
Verses of her recent drafting
Confident that she would get
Comment, not a clever shafting.
How I rue my thoughtless act
And the tongue-pie that she fed me!
What a lesson –Show some tact! –
Jenny read me!
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Marshall Begel: The Oldest Living Nerd
(After “The Oldest Living Thing in L.A.”, by Larry Levis)
Don't look at me like some medieval fool –
I've fixed computers since they were invented
and never used some software fix-it tool
because back then, these glitches were prevented.
Oh, how I miss the days of byte and datum
when programs came by software magazine –
you'd enter every character verbatim,
then lose it when you turn off your machine.
But now, this online system's convoluted
and everything is risky to install.
With modern code so bloated and polluted,
you wonder how these gadgets work at all.
So go ahead, Son, have yourself a look.
I'll go downstairs to nap and read a book.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
D. A. Prince: Bozzimandias
I met a refugee from Boris days
Who said: That vast and grinning head of stone
Some hold immortal. Those, there are, who praise
His grasp of truth, the Classics, how he won
Proud victories before the flagship’s days
Sank in cold-hearted partying and lies.
His speeches sell (his book less so) while we
Are rendered speechless as he claims his prize.
But in the annals stubborn history writes,
While books exist, while speech is still as free,
His every Phwoar!’s recorded for all time:
The blustering buffoonery, false fame,
The casual corruption played as mime,
And with the end of all things will come shame.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Steven Searcy: A Night at the Movies, February 1998
(With apologies to T. S. Eliot and James Cameron)
Let us go then, you and me,
Into the theater to see
The lavish historical blockbuster
Among an audience with folks of every stripe
Who've come to witness the hype,
For the first or fifteenth time –
The star-crossed lovers, the epic maritime
Catastrophe – a cathartic, communal experience,
The tragic crash of colossal opulence,
An overwhelming spectacle . . .
Don’t worry, we won’t forget
To silence cell phones – we don’t have them yet.
In the room the girls come and go
Talking of Leo DiCaprio
And all the scandalous stuff,
Like Winslet in the buff
And unsanctioned sex
Below doomed decks.
The ticket-takers in their regal vests
Are also thinking about that scene with breasts.
Everywhere we've heard that tune
With the plaintive tin whistle,
And picture the shipwreck down in the abyssal
Zone, long-submerged and enigmatic,
All so perfectly cinematic.
The house lights go down.
The show is starting soon.
And now
Here they are, standing at the prow,
Arms outstretched, eyes shut tight,
The briny breeze, the waves of white.
Then tuxedos and coiffed hair,
So elegant and debonair,
Descending the grand stair,
With stately music from an upper deck
(Before the voices dying in the wreck)
While the young ladies swoon –
Will it be over soon?
We have seen the arms and the bosom,
Necklaced and white and bare
(With lamplight glowing on red hair).
Is it the passion and fancy dress
That cause so many to obsess?
Will it be over soon?
Eventually, we reach the cataclysmic collision
in the north Atlantic, where the floating ice is
Forcing the drama to its crisis –
The passengers wept and gasped, wept and prayed.
Watching the patterns on the screen, we might glimpse a flicker,
As teenage boys chatter and snicker;
The younger children are afraid.
The convergence of the twain,
The sundering of devotion,
Lost in the heart of the ocean.
In the end it took a lot of time,
Time for you and time for me,
Time for falling in love with a stranger,
Time for intrigue and time for danger,
Time for nautical disaster.
Could it have all been over faster?
Was it worth it, after all?
Magnificent, meticulous,
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –
Rose grows old . . . Rose grows old . . .
(So many millions of tickets sold.)
I wish we could be on a submarine
Deep below the waves of black and green,
A magical underwater scene,
With emotive singing from Celine.
I do not think that she will sing for us.
We have seen the vessel sinking in the waves
As the wind blows the water, cold and black.
What’s lost will linger in the chambers of the sea.
Farewell to ballroom, romance, evening gown.
The movie's over. Lots of people drown.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Felicia Nimue Ackerman: An American Looks Forward
(With apologies to Emily Dickinson)
There is no frigate like a vote
To make autocracy remote,
To leave behind that shocking scourge
And let a better day emerge.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Martin Parker: Leonard Cohen Wants Laughs
(After LC’s Song Bird On A Wire)
Like a clown in despair
Like a punctured whoopee cushion on a chair
I have tried in my way to get laughs.
I suspect laughter's king.
But each song I'm ever heard to sing
Comes out too depressing by half.
I sang a song I thought might make the listeners smile
One begged, No more like that. It's simply not your style.
And a woman dressed up all in black
Cried, Hey you bum, I want my money back.
Like a clown in despair
Like a punctured whoopee cushion on a chair
I 'm still waiting in vain to get laughs.
