Ken's Poetry

Shutdown

Douglas Gale

No undelete for death,
no undo to bring you back,
your data has gone beyond disk doctoring;
the tracks you made are gone,
thoughts from your volatile memory
and the files you built with care
over a lifetime’s tap and touch.

Emails stack unread in some deep void
but no replies come buzzing down the wires,
in time the faceless webmaster will come
and wipe away these messages from the past.

URL not found. Blank screen.
Somewhere in the chaos of magnetic media
and gibbering information packets
a low resolution image
forms from pixels lingering
in dead magnetic dust.

The mighty programmer should be shot
for the bugs he left inside your code!
The weak security – the vulnerability.
The viruses were bound to shut you down.

No upgrade for your worn out parts
no over-clocking broken hearts,
your system was unstable for too long
hungry new environments sapped your strength
flashed bright blue fatal errors on your eyes.
Is it safe for me to switch you off?