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Page 129

These days we notice, not the blank page,
but the blank screen. In fact, the word "BLANK"
is an acronym (a crony, mmm?): "Bad Local Area
Network! -- Kaput!"

If you are reading these words, they came to you
via a computer screen, though, thanks to
Windows (when it works), never a blank one,
the page always bordered and crisscrossed by
helpful doodads and flickering thingies --
it's like trying to write while various
winged muses, teasing cupids, good angels
and bad angels battling for my heart
and the rest of the rococo allegorical mob
flit and hover about my head,
guide and impede my hand --

ah, my software, must you keep capitalizing
that letter for me? How many times must I tell you
the period it follows only denotes an abbreviation?
And NO, I do NOT want to change "uuouu"
to "enough" or "union" or "youth"? A textbook
once showed me a complex design containing a word
which appeared to be "union" or "onion"
depending on whether or not the reader
suffered from blue-green/red color blindness.
It is hard for me to imagine the world
my software sees. My software is as alien to me
as a jellyfish or a termite.

Or perhaps it is rationally arguing for birth control;
seeing too many Wows (and detecting the "wow"
in "uuouu"), it chants, "ENOUGH UNION, YOUTH!"

I miss the simple DOS prompt. But I do it, Reader, put my
once blank pages through this humming, hypercritical device --
I do it for you! (How do you like this font?
It stands for all the good Times Roamin' with you.
All my angels become serifs.)

Note on last two lines: I tend to stick with tired old Times New Roman, which, of course, is serifed. Angels are more likely to be seraphs.

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