Death of a Modem Driver
The day the modem driver died
just like that - plink
no more internet link.
I tried and tried
but it was no use he’d gone
and I couldn’t go on.
McAfee saw a culprit everywhere,
blamed spyware,
searched the programs all.
Was I sure he was dead?
Had he just gone a.w.o.l?
Was it the server? He was having a ball.
The hardware mourned. They
were very close, a family.
It took days to arrange,
a replacement had to be found,
in the meantime everything ground
to a halt, very strange.
The world was dark, silent,
communication ceased.
It took me back thirty years
to virtual peace,
made me think – plink, when did I get
so dependent on the internet?
I took up my pad and pen
and the world buzzed again
Hats Off
Jenny Joseph warned she would wear a red hat.
Well, there’s nothing so shocking today about that.
They gather in chapters now, so I am told
to prove red and purple, at fifty, is bold.
Is this what ‘fun’ is, when you’ve spent all your life
suppressing yourself as a mother and wife?
If you really want freedom just wear what you please
without turning it into a social disease.
The Crab
The crab wears her skeleton
on the outside to appear
less vulnerable.
She scuttles sideways to
avoid confrontation.
She lives in a shallow pool,
clinging to the rock in surging tides.
To grow she must expose herself;
shedding every time her carapace.
The crab is the
progeny of a supernova,
seen in 1054
nine hundred years before
I was born
and as it cools,
it spreads
its gaseous light.
The crab swims in an
opalescent pool
light years deep.
OONAH V. JOSLIN was born in
MOTIVATIONS:
The Crab
This poem was in fact written many years ago and the motivation for it is now uncertain in my mind, but my zodiac sign is Cancer and I don’t believe in astrology, but am fascinated by astronomy. I suspect that this was an attempt to rationalize the crab in scientific terms. I had just found out that that nebula appeared in 1054. I was born in 1954. Synchronicity is illogical too but I am no Vulcan.
Hats Off
Hats, was the subject of a flash challenge in my writer’s community web site. I could only think of that poem by Jenny Joseph. I searched the web and to my horror, found there is a Red Hat society where women of a certain age wear purple and red. I have done so for years – I like colours that clash. Now I wear blue and green instead.
Blue and green should never be seen
except with Oonah in between.
Death of a Modem Driver
This year we were off line for five weeks with a sickly computer. My husband said he thought it might be the modem driver. I thought of the poor man crashing on the information highway and ‘plink’, a poem was born.