THE SHINE JOURNAL

Flash Literature, Poetry, Art and Photography!

Three Poems by Oonah V. Joslin

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

OONAH V. JOSLIN was born in Northern Ireland and now lives in the North East of England with her husband and a cat.  Although she has been writng poetry for many years, it is only after a career in teaching that she has come to writing full time.  She writes short fiction as well as poetry and is working on a first novel. Oonah has appeared on SHINE! before and you may see her work  here.

 

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.