E-poem: sixteen
hey Donny
whatever happened to the Sandinistas?
they go back to Sandia or what?
don’t think they put ’em in books
they don’t seem to have regular wars
like we studied in school
the WWs & Nam
steerin’ down a bomb now & then
on ol’ Sodomy’s sand lot
seems like wranglin’ a truck
CB-in’ in for permission to dolly the load
knowin’ a satellite’s watchin’ your run
low grade spoon-measured wars percolate
in Sudan / Honduras
is Chiapis one?
Serbs & Croats & Bosnians & Kosovos & Kurds
some don’t even have websites I bet
they say the next big one
is gonna be cyber war not germs
e-mail bombs greasin’ in by wire
guess what? special delivery
logic bombs sprinkle fonted debris
(rainin’ plastic shit on your front lawn
& you just mowed it
& you can’t call the police cuz the phone’s out
but nothin’ is on TV yet)
arial / times new roman bold
ol’ crazy Ted’s a joke
cipherin’ in Band-Aided glasses
to whittle evil numbers for Federal Express
plannin’ to take your drive for an unnumbered spin
backups discretely unzip leaking black lace
in parking lots where they’re filming for Cops
even your own ATM won’t spit
nothing will start
chain saws cough & won’t catch
you fumble for passwords in your wallet
(betcha there’s a rubber in there
just in case of a miracle & your line works)
but AOL doesn’t know you
your frequent flier miles diminish in the distance
& somebody is dead in the ditch
with no eyewitness news to hover
at the Hy-Vee bar code lays limp unread
not even the clown will talk at McDonald’s land
because the electric is all dead
so where do you want to go today little girl?
it’s Stephen King time for the net
I see what ya mean
day & night without respite
they wail & cry & howl & restart
their pain & grief have no relief
it’s gonna be bad as it gets
(think we ought to put mud tires on
Lonny?)
E-poem: seventeen
ya know Donny
I been thinkin’ of takin’ a course
down at the community college
don’t pull my cord Lonny
West Texas Tech: it’s where you are
West Texas Tech: mosey on in partner
ain’t nothin’ without a slogan
(that is / some specific thing
an executable in words encoded
look for .exe & double punch it)
what ya plannin’ to take?
computers what else?
well cows & horses is big
ya could learn to make lunch
or guard a Pantex gate
no / computers is it
thought of cow bussin’
& they wanna push nursin’at me
there’s always hammerin’
but computers is it
what kind of com-pukin’ ya contemplate?
Starbuck java in a styrofoam cup?
grep unix & linux & whatever’s next
chown-in’ & ownin’ until
the blue screen of death
bet ya get C++ for a grade
defrag the FAT &
don’t forget to ask when ya forget
whoami
yeah ha ha Donny
but computers is no joke
ya know they’re goin’ in cars
to know where you’re at
I don’t want to talk at ’em so much
they’re gettin’ wizards for that
they have a course like mechanics
where ya pry off the lid
& swap out this for that
change the oil & update the bits
ya end up with a whole new bios
prescribed by the disk doctors
get real Lonny
ain’t no wrenches & grease
there’s just scratches under the hood
ya seen those faggy pastel moon suits at Intel
bet there’s Chinamen inside
anyway they ain’t tellin’
the actual swap is
your old wheezin’ machine comming to www.dell.com
for the very last time
& the UP guy truckin’ up
with boxes full of your next life
then you’re really racin’
E-poem: eighteen
William Bradford e-mails home:
65 days of long beating until
young William Butten saw the coast
we thought his new world was not our new world
yet half went with him over the winter
New England is a hideous & desolate wilderness
(worse than France we think)
full of wild beasts & wilder men
now the mighty ocean is a bar & gulf
to all the civil parts of the world
we fall to our knees in mud & pray God
for we know not what can sustain us here
but website & connection
one of ours in fever asked for a small can of beer
the seamen told him that Jesus would soon pull him a draft
& Mr. Morton will allow no barber at Merrymount
(you can read Mr. Hawthorne for this)
we bewail the mischief that this wicked Morton began
boiling up viruses to crash into God’s promise
leukemia & flu creep out from the edge of forest gloom
on the sabbath Mr. Morton strings ribbons & frippery in the trees
prophesying that Ganymede & the Greek gods
will dance on a wire in these very demon haunted woods
the demented Mr. Morton says he can faintly discern in the mist
a true church called Microsoft pursuing God’s righteous work
Mr. Roger Williams is a man godly & zealous
but very unsettled in judgment
he this year began to fall into some strange opinions
concerning the tongue of Babel
& how Adam spoke linux when he named beasts in the garden
& how Moroni (not the angel) buried the hieroglyphic gold
we fear Mr. Williams is hacking & will bring mischief to us all
I shall not need to name particulars
they are too well known
to wit:
Mr. Williams preached that
God requireth not an uniformity of religion
to be enacted & enforced by a senior systems administrator
to grep hidden bugs & revoke passwords
of any who would corrupt the holy system
alas now when a server mysteriously terminates connection
we fear that there are some among us who are not truly elect
their OS pirated & their registries corrupt
if God allows us life in this new world
we plan Harvard college
to graduate sound systems administrators
who will delete the demon from God’s holy church
E-poem: nineteen
John Winthrop e-mails the newsgroup
alt.religion.christian.boston-church
(yeah it’s really there
fire off your newsreader & see
betcha the pews is empty)
thus stands the cause of holy righteousness:
we are entered into a covenant for this work
(Ally McBeal examined the contract
Cage & Fish
Associates
I know she’s not very good
but she only eats a few bytes)
we must consider that geocities
shall be
as a website upon a hill
the eyes of all people are clicked upon us
believers access Yahoo for guidance
to divers things in this world & the next
physicians & pharmacies dispense on the net
distance education chimes from Harvard’s campanile
but woe to the prurient & purveyors of Gomorrah
the webmaster will surely break out in wrath against us
for foul internet porn
to be revenged of such a perjured people
& make us know the price
for breach of SLIP covenant & sin:
TryAgain: transmit "^M"
; ping
[those 8 vacuous spaces are not to
be omitted
even by those of the New Light who
preach that there is no time for
drudgeries of work]
goto BailOut
Mr. Tilley was a very stout man of great understanding
until the Indians cut off his hands & afterwards his feet
Mrs. Hutchinson is banished
excommunicated & password revoked
the Boston server will no longer answer
in-coming calls made the Rhode Island way
Mr. Hopkins’ wife has fallen into a sad infirmity
the loss of her understanding & reason
by occasion of technical writing
(this is the demon’s foul drivel as Mr. Pynchon knows
click not to Virginia & the STC
tis the place of the demon & the passive voice
an abomination that cancers syntax divine)
Margaret Jones was indicted
& found guilty of witchcraft & hanged for it
casting divers spells with the demon’s cleaved tongue
she confessed her master was Microsoft
before her foulness was choked
take heart fellow saints as I leave you
for we know that nothing arrives by wire
but by divine providence & ISP
E-poem: twenty
Lonny’s notes
CS 010: Netiquette
West Texas Tech: where the sky shakes hands with the horizon
(preliminary: Etiquette = French ticket)
lab rules (no exceptions):
NO :
--eats (includes gum
& sucking Tic-Tacs
a
Tums might get by
right
now it’s on the shelf)
--drinks
--Skoal spit cups
(know what? / my dad said
Old Man Balt half filled a Crisco can
at the Hardtop county centennial meeting
Mr. Kraft wouldn’t let ya get away with that)
--smokes
--sleep (head’s up display)
--roughhouse (take it to your house)
--girlfriends/boyfriends (standing around / on-line okay)
--cursing / foul language (on-line or real)
--radios/WalkMan (earphones okay / not in class)
--skates / skateboards
--bikes (front wheels / seats)
--dogs / pets (simulated okay / keep ’em on your monitor)
--babies / kids
--vandals / weapons (mace is okay in your purse)
--laser pointers
--magnets
--stickers (taggers will be hunted down)
--cell phones off (one line is enough & you’re on ethernet)
--beepers/pagers off
--keep your boots on
PC’s are not laptops (don’t try to take ’em off)
don’t mess with cables & locks
covers are locked for ram
the UC is your friend (user consultant)
verboten:
cruising for porn
don’t pretend to be an e-mail pervert cuz who can tell the difference?
games [ain’t fair]
gambling (in New Zealand?)
flaming / frying / cursing
crossposting (what about crossdressing?)
uppercase: means shouting (BIG DEAL)
mail bombs (even if jokes)
reset hit counters (how?)
hack into the Pentagon
e-mail to Bill Gates, the governor, etc.
burning CDs cuz your drive won’t
uploading pirates
quiz:
edu org mil com gov
au jp ge fr br ru
path bps dos chmod
mb cp rm kb ftp ls
[can I buy a vowel?]
homework:
1. find Cowboy’s website
2. e-mail Boy’s url to teach
3. use :) a lot
4. report a busted link (cc to teach)
5. subscribe & monitor: tx.test
fido7.moldova.testing
[notes to self: fido
For
Intelligent
Dogs
On-line
e-mail for dogs??
moldova = madonna?
check it out!]
cautions:
everyone in the world can read your usenet posts
don’t be dumber than usual
spelling errors look dumb
lurk before you post
after a while get a life off-line for at least an hour a day
theory (not testable):
internet manifests an inherent spectrum
of modern versus postmodern identity construction
the full novelty of this displacement into virtual public (cyber)spaces
is so profound that soon nobody will know who they are
(Donny don’t know who he is half the time already :)
E-poem: twenty-one
Lonny’s homework
CS 010: Netiquette
West Texas Tech: where cows are animal science
assignment #3: report what you find on the www
list 12 hits
do not list urls
describe & comment
Infoseek :) to look down the wire
4,182 returns for "lonny"
:) seems like there would be more
6,030 on Alta Vista :) there are more!
Lonny Childress in Bigfoot
:) probably the most famous Lonny
Ally McBeal weighs 100 pounds :) says she eats one cookie for lunch
(bet she eats as much beef as Oprah-- this is extra; no comment needed)
2cows
:) they got the cheap beef
mp3s
:) military police X 3 + FBI = screwed
Microsoft :) "gentlemen / start your engines"
the invisible empire :) spewing (filtered through a sheet)
official bug of Texas :) guess what it is (tell you in class)
termpapers for free :) not for our class
amazon :) they still print ink books?
E-poem: twenty-two
Lonny’s homework
CS 010: Netiquette
West Texas Tech: the future is waiting inside
assignment #4: simulate e-mail to a famous person
DO NOT send it
print it & hand it in
remember you are demonstrating netiquette
to: gandhi@ashram.org.in
from: lonny@wtt.texas.cc.edu
subject: kine & yak
dear Mr. Mohammed Gandhi:
I saw you in a movie one time
think it was Ben Kingsley
India looks like a real crowded place
where nobody owns a boot
it’s so far from Texas we don’t know much about it
so I want to ask you about sacred cows
we got a few cows ’round Amarillo
about half in the world
even some dewlap India brahmers
guess you got the other half
ain’t none of ours sacred
(how would you know?)
they just chew their cuds & stare dumb
waiting to go to McDonalds
I can hardly believe you ain’t got golden arches
least ways to get some fries & ketchup
now getting back to stock
we got a simulated sacred cow
Holstein hide on a box
it’s a computer gimmick
why are yours so holy?
did the pope bless ’em?
heard you bring elephants in church
same with the cows?
guess I could see it if they prayed a lot
dogs can do that trick
heard your cows stand still to be petted
not ours
we have to rope ’em & bulldog ’em some for the rodeo
& shove ’em in trucks
maybe that’s what makes yours so holy
anyway if you got the time
after your spinning wheel work & praying & fasting
& telling everybody how to act
maybe you can tell me how your cows got so holy
PS
I don’t think it will work in west Texas
whatever it is
E-poem: twenty-three
hey Lonny
don’t see much of ya anymore
ya gone vampire now?
night prowlin’ ’round
or ya fresh out on parole?
yeah ha ha Donny
ya know I been logged-on the CS lab
ain’t a real lab / no frogs to cut
& we sure ain’t surfin’
more like stuck in a truck
starin’ all stuporized at bugs on the windshield
waitin’ for websites ta load
it’s like the Sports Page
’xcept there’s no brew
& ya can’t drag your best friend in
but it’s full of the same guys
in tee shirts & jeans threaded-out at the knees
boots that are all jammed up when
you’re plunked down on stools crammed in too close
unless it’s a girl ya wanna study
which is ’xactly never
nobody wants ya readin’ their screen
like they got somethin’ special & you’re gonna steal it
smells all hot & electrical
it’s stupid / cuz instead of sizin’ each other up
shootin’ the breeze with your brain throw’d in neutral
ya have to give street directions for Fort Worth ta somebody in Prague
who is eatin’ a Big Mac & wants to play Lonesome Dove
news from folks screamin’ & cussin’
over stuff ya can’t figure out
the men’s room wall down at the Sports Page
makes about as much sense
maybe we should put it on-line?
alt.support.calliope.texas.pisser-help
sounds like that class is prepin’ ya proper
for intellectual life in these parts
heard its tingein’ ya a little Hindu though
what kind of a job is that for a Byelo-Baptist?
well I kinda e-mailed Mr. Gandhi but
I think more’s comin’ next semester on emacs
hope we got faster whizzers by then
don’t know if I’ll mosey back
that virtual life ain’t so much
simulatin’ with a rope
ya never know where you’re at & when it’s comin’
(they put away the evil day
& drown their care & fears)
(wouldn’t a icy dos Equis go good ’bout now?
damn straight it would pard
damp down all that heat throwed off by your box
but ya gotta hold off ’count of the lab)
course ya know you’re penned in with calf-face kids
where each is site licensed off
in his own day dreamy place
screamin’ electro-violence chat or doom
ya know Lonny it’s not suppose to matter
where you’re sittin’ when you’re phonin’ it in
telepathic like
’sides ya got no worries ’bout tornadoes
parkin’ tickets & movin’ violations
black ice & a full metal crash
no ’surance to pay
perched on your barstool
castin’ a line out there in the cyberlake
your only worry is what kinda bait to use
don’t know Donny
ya make it sound better ’n a trip to Borger
E-poem: twenty-four
they say
select junk wins lottery bucks
a Tiffany lamp uncracked
a certified vial of the Virgin’s medieval milk
(where they get stuff like that Donny?
outta World Lit.?)
(nah it leaked down the wire)
granddad said they weren’t rocks
said they was Urim & Thumim
(you can find ’em your own self
well not you ’xactly
like walkin’ on a Calliope sidewalk
& spotting a quarter
you can’t pick ’em up & handle ’em
trust Infoseek to clue you in)
no ma’am
you remember an angel spirited them out of New York
(angels is thick as June bugs there certain times a year)
yes this is a German enigma machine
(becha didn’t know the ark wuz made of gopher wood
course that wuz before browsers came on so big)
the docs prescribe sudden money:
a specialist at Christie’s would know
see this mark?
it’s the Midas touch
made by the Kaiser’s teeth when
he let wind & sneezed while taking a sip of beer
from this very stein
they say you could hear it from Düsseldorf to Berlin
blew the hands right off some model Dürer was drawing
down in Nuremberg
frequent flyer miles to France
no sir / Henry James is in first class
museums are worse than malls
to hobble & put a crick in your neck
& what can you do when you’re done
if you won’t talk to the only folks who speak English?
(duh / how ’bout 14 of them prime Czech beers
English ales / stout Guinnesses
bring ’em on / we’ll sort ’em out
had to drink Gold Fassl once myself
yup that’s how it’s spelt)
the Library of Congress has a hundred miles of unread books
but the repository for disabled links is a recycle dump in Lubbock
stops your breath for a second before you decide
to accept the charitable smell
short women in sweaters shop for worn out kids’ clothes
(you never really look at ’em do ya Slick?)
(well they ain’t tryin’ out for cheerleadin’
leave me alone / wanna look for a army jacket)
mismatched crutches post-it the wall
St. Vincent dePaul prays unix to God
sorting buckets of bolts & pieces of web
arthritic claws clamped like bad false teeth
(what happens when ya go to Mexico for teeth)
so he just goes through the motions
(gonna turn him in Slick?)
http with threads all stripped
industrial sacks leak rusted slashes
forward & backward sorted
(in different bags
those heavy white woven nylon ribbon ones
they only send overseas)
too short for dollhouse venetian blinds
too heavy to weld for Barbie’s hairpins
& their posture is hopeless
they slouch & won’t stand
(like: /// \\
go ’head / yell at ’em / if ya want)
colons heap up in tangled eyeglasses piles
chipped letters neck interlocked
(don’t you kids get no ideas)
stacks of unsorted fonts nest flat
stuck together like transparencies
bold & italic / symbols & wingdings
teeny dots fill cloudy pickle jars
(you could sprinkle ’em on a doughnut
at an imaginary tea party
if ya ever get invited
wanna save ’em?
open your folder)
you hardly notice wav file grunts
rooted by consultants vanned-in
to get ’em out of the house for the day
eyeballs tracking uncontrolled
(probably should run a head cleaner on that)
fingering rubix cubes of high-tech junk
286s that fire up unnetworked with nowhere to go
IBM missals in Latin that no one will pray
the nonsynthetic smell of human implosion threatens
(WARNING: Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL
again will restart your computer
oh my God / did I pressed ’em once already?
what’ll I do?)
(you’d like ta ask that walleyed heifer back in the trailer
wouldn’t ya?
well ya can’t cuz it’s an all beef wiener by now
best ya can do is get some mustard)
Hieronymus Bosch modems gibberish
to a server that once replied ex cathedra
from the black tinted window of a stretch ivory limo
now mincing away through our broken greasy street
cautious to leave the deranged unhit
pushing chrome grocery carts on the stations of the cross
patiently filled with infobahn debris
crushed java cans & unlinked internet rosaries
crumpled code wrappers & virtual plastic liter bottles
from last year’s tradeshow on flat panels
& cruise control to motor the virtual future
(like it’s gonna come out of a
ostrich Easter egg
what’s a busted airliner [crashed in the Prado]
& also a woman’s birthin’ parts
& she’s kinda a chicken
with a disk on her head & a gourd playin’ a flute on the disk
& I bet the disk is almost full
& you’re gonna get the message:
"insert a new disk" / any
second
now consider
before you have to insert
there’s a man on a ladder
do you suppose he’s climbing up or comin’ on down
from that cracked egg world?
takes time to tell
I tell ya my brain’s
whirligigin’ with questions like these
& if this had gone on one second longer
it woulda required a new disk)
Donny Does E-mail is continued in the next issue of Amarillo Bay.