X

Author's forward: this was written when I first started getting really down and dirty with X. R2 was just out, there was very little documentation, I was working way too late...

Dedicated to Tyler Stevens (tyler@tigger.colorado.edu) who said, 'Actually, you are permitted to call X "poetry".'

(metzo forte. with feeling)

   You can call X "poetry".
   But I have seen the X held high
   and bright as a symbol of pride
   and arrogance.

   And you may call it "lines",
   for lines it is, twain lines,
   criss-crossing about their navels,
   a lewd romance.

   But I call X 11
   as does its creator, the vast
   and sprawling complex known as MIT,
   that makes the windows dance.

(metzo spaghetti. droning.)

   So oft have I watched your glowing
   (radioactive) cursors flowing,
   blowing, snowing
   across the grey'd out background of a thousand
   clients dead,
   or asleep, perchance, adreaming they are going,
   watching the mice crowing,
   slowing, throwing
   their electronic tails capriciously across my desk
   with dread.

(With apologies to Carl Sandburg, and the X Development folk.)

 

Copyright 1989, 2013 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

A Brief History of the TV Remote Control

When I was a kid, I was the remote. I had to actually get up and walk all the way to the TV to change the volume or channel. Or stop it from scrolling. Or adjust the antenna.
Up hill.
Both ways.
In snow so deep I couldn't see the ceiling.
Gnawing on my frozen lips for food.
Fighting cannibals and zombies for those lips.
And I didn't even mind most days.
The End.
 
Inspired by a Neil Orts status on facebook.