Leslie Koch's Poems
Terminal Illness.
Its gears are a-grinding (again);
Its circuits unwinding; and then --
Three BLINKIES appear,
And all I hold dear
Disappears.  Rest in Peace and Amen.		 Library systems
27 May 1988
The following were written to celebrate
Katherine's retirement		 29 September 1997
they make sense if you
were there then!
"You must move apart!" said our boss.
You're communing too much!" (She was cross.)
And without Katherine as tutor,
I stopped learning computer(s)
And that's why I am still using DOS.		 Our adjunct librarian, Thomas P.
Worked for us all without fee
As an unpaid consutant
And the answers resultant
Made us appear nearly as smart as he!
Katherine thought a Library career would suit her
Then they brought in a desktop computer
As PCs sprang chthonic,
Katherine went catatonic;
And since then no one's been able to mute her.		 To deliver all the news to the spies,
OSPO's goal was, and it's no surprise
That the answer, of course,
Was Rich Open Source.
And that the ROSE that arose won top prize!
There once was a maid from South Texas
Whose colloquialisms could perplex us.
But language aside,
We can still take great pride,
That in contracts, she outwitted NEXIS!		 While she tuned Overture for Symphony,
Katherine always had our sympathy.
She twiddled and tweaked,
And occasionally freaked!
(I'm just eternally glad it weren't me ...)
Kotchira-no Katherine-san
In Japanese class carried on
In good Nihongo
So her teachers would know
Of her Guinea pigs habits and brawn.		 Dozens of good books dwelleth
On Katherine and Tom's Reading Shelf;
And greater love hath no friend
Than one who will lend
You a book she's not read herself.
A peripatetic sojourner in L-space
Katherine's footsteps are not easy to trace.
First Neely to Pern,
Then MidCulter to Quirm
She expects all her friends to keep pace.		 Reprise of a Limerick Written to 
Commemorate the 1989 Soviet Invasion 
of Afghanistan From a Culinary Perspective
Afghan cuisine's on a par
With the best -- fit for Empress or Tsar!
But since the invasion
Every pumpin and raisin
Has been wasted on some Commissar.

And Updated for the 1990s:
The Taliban's now wreaking havoc
And the entire country's in shellshock.
I hope that their plan
All to women to ban,
Creates and immediate shortage of aushak!
 
At home ...
In Bethesda the restaurants are bare,
Their Maitre d's have lost savoir faire;
For Long and for Vogl
(Who's orders they'd ogle)
Are taking their business elsewhere.

The pomegrantes and oranges were fine,
And so, too, the biscuits and wine.
But withougt casserole d'oyster
I may join a cloister.
My Thanksgiving's in a real decline.

Tom gnaws on oxtails and Katherine on eels.
The pigs devour corncobs with delighted squeals.
The hedgehogs eat mealworms
(Who've dined on cornmeal in their turn).
Here it's chacun a son gout during meals.

After dinner there everyone wishes
To take home some leftover dishes.
But new Tupperware
With holes punched for air,
Always makes me suspicious.
 

 To: kcl&tpv@w.tisbury.home
E-mail, e-mail, in your flight
O'er the airwaves, thorugh the night,
Keep our circle yet unbroken
As if our words were still being spoken
As in the old days,
Face to face.

From the desktop to the laptop
Keep our e-mail flowing nonstop.
May your pixels, bytes and bits,
Sustain our fellowship amidst
The random switching packets
Out in space.

Protect our modems sending rate
Don't let our bauds evaporate.
Phone lines, ley lines, microwaves - 
Choose whichever method shaves
Some nanoseconds
Off transmission time.

Strengthen fingers on the keyboard,
Keep the e-mail wending me-ward
From office hi-tech or the sundeck,
Don't even pause to invoke SpellCheck;
Let typos mark
Our shifting paradigm.

Increase our RAM so we may store
Shared pearls of wisdom evermore.
Grant auto-backup for our harddrive,
Don't let us crash, let us survive.
Beef up our server, too - 
Perhaps a Cray?

And in some chat room in December
Let us gather to remember,
'Round a virtural Solstice Tree,
How much fun it used to be
Celebrating winter's
Shortest day.

FTP the decorations
And the kitchen's preparations.
Stream the audio to surround us
Just like when the music found us
Gathered in their house
From everywhere.

While we wish for them the best
(Good Luck, Good Health and all the rest)
We'd prefer our spheres to interface
In real time and a real place.
We'd like to trade our virtual "here"
For reality there

lesliek 29 September 1997

 
On the Sudden Collapse of Two Personal Computers in the Office of Information Resources' Information Services Division During the Week of 16-20 June 1986

The screen -- first it brightens, then fades.
(A symptom of past escapades?)
As their temperature rises
It wouldn't surprise us
To learn that our P.C.s have AIDS.
               - Anon. -

 
 
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