Poetry Superhighway April 2023 Poems

A man and his computer, Best friends or enemies?

s

A man and his computer, Best friends or enemies?

I have a love-hate relationship
With my computer

I have been writing
with the aid
Of a computer

Now for almost 40 years
Having bought my first computer
In 1984

Over the years
I must have written
Millions of words

And over the years
My computer
Must have lost
Thousands of words

My computer likes to play games
With me
Crashing for no reason
Endless non-response
blue spinning wheels

making me wait
for up to five minutes
then letting me see
it just ate the words

and they are gone
into the ether
never to be found again

sometimes the undo button works
other times it does not

sometimes the copy-and-paste feature
wipes out the previous text
and for good measure
turns off the undo button

often
trying to open a document
is an exercise in shear frustration

constantly getting strange
haiku error messages
such as

there is a dialogue box open
close the dialogue box
but there is no visible dialogue box

but the worst error message
of all
was when I tried to copy
non-excel data

I would receive a message
Saying

There are no fonts available
Okay yes or no

Once I clicked okay
250 times
Before my computer crashed

I reported this to Microsoft
Nothing but radio silence
As usual

I shifted to google docs
And the problem was solved

I could go on and on
But I grow weary
Of recounting all the ways
My computer loves
To mess with me.



April 29, 2023: Poetry Writing Prompt from William Bianchi
This poetry writing prompt submitted by William Bianchi:
Write a poem about the relationship between two objects (or people, if you prefer).
Here are some suggestions for directions you can take this prompt in:
• The spatial/positional relationship between two objects (e.g. a book sitting on top of a shelf, a tray of cookies baking inside an oven)
• The interpersonal/symbiotic/interactive relationship between two objects/people (e.g. a cat relying on a blanket for warmth, a child being dependent on their caretaker, spaghetti cooperating with tomato sauce to form a tasty meal, a light bulb and a lamp working together to provide light)
• The symbolic relationship between two or more objects (e.g. withering flowers in a dry vase might represent neglect and hundreds of books in a library might represent collective knowledge)
Please feel free to stray from these suggestions. Have fun writing!
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.