Microsoft Mammoth

The behemoth of binary operations
Slid past Y2K as if there were no flaws,
With no apparent cracks
He created windows but closed doors.
Now, he hears the news of forest fires,
hungry hurricanes.

He sighs.

Plastic for wool, the monster sees in every steely reflection
the words in English,
“Do not make illegal copies.”

He never did,
and yet those people and plastics
who obeyed written rules
face nature’s laws;
he, the outdated immortal,
watches as woman and man fight
for space to live,
for food and water.
He, discarded, takes up little place.

Little by little he sees the world’s roof buckle
Forced shut as the ground rises,
stuffed with garbage
legally manufactured
98 eXPonential vistas of a plastic Ice Age.
Flaws are now obvious, the cracks are deepening.
Humankind and machine,
side by side,
both doomed.
(We discard the CD just as the planet swallows us.)

Biology is flawed
but technology’s only law
is obsolescence.

SOLD