"Domain Names" by dominic fox
00 Listmania! For serial composers,
01 iterators, enumerators -
02 now populate the set, the structure
03 lying open like a row of unmade beds.
04 I do declare. This is my new assignment.
05 Reset accumulators. Do not heed
06 all warnings from compilers.
07 Hand over mundane work to AUTOMAKE.
08 Script auto-poeisis or -biography. Write
09 code that writes code; pipe sound
0A and sweet air between processes. But do
0B leave Whitman out of it. Though he meant well.
0C Or grep a couple dozen choice extracts
0D from THE JARGON FILE (quoth Minsky,
0E Knuth; quoth Stallman), insert hopefully
0F clueful commentary, configure, make install.
---
10 Corrupted bug report received in error:
11 could not resolve address. This traces back
12 unendingly, is lost at last amid
13 a blitz of registers - beyond my skill
14 if not all skill. Go high-level to bare metal
15 in winding descent; resist light, heat and shards;
16 get zapped in nether regions. Every black
17 box has another black box inside it somewhere.
18 The shortest path is a relaxed approach
19 to th'infinite: so route around bad sectors,
1A solicit patches, number each release
1B in cautious increments. Surely that kingdom
1C looms aloft where art is catalogued,
1D all things considered harmless. There the blinding
1E magii parley, indolent in their wreaths,
1F their elan earthed, exposed as commonplace.
---
20 You catch me still warming up, rebooting
21 after unpardonable down-time; not showing
22 as yet the proprietory blue face of death.
23 How unlike sleep that is; how unlike waking
24 the fan's whirr into life, unbroken ex-
25 or in-halation, depending on where you stand.
26 Now the machine ghosts us, is more and more
27 our shape-shifting familiar. Who or what else
28 recalls your favourites, knows just where you've been?
29 Disk failure menaces like aneurysm, data
2A clotted and scrambled, irrecoverable
2B except by expert witness. Reformat that:
2C effaced partition tables barely touch
2D such horrors, the blood's abrupt lese-majeste.
2E Returning void from main, dereference
2F null pointer. Cast about for metaphor.
---
30 Revert to type. Display ancestral sinew;
31 bare teeth, posterior; spit on the lens.
32 Adjusting boundaries, make BONOBO
33 your watchword. Be the oldest swinger in town.
34 (Make that PRO BONO? Waivers at the ready:
35 defend lost cause against neanderthal
36 incursions. Brandish fur bikini. Grub
37 for windfall berries. Reinvent the wheel).
38 Assimilation seems like rich desserts
39 and no bad destination, next to region
3A of dissim - of dissimil - how you say?
3B Mixed heritage is not the all of it -
3C see given explanation, figures showing
3D mortality wound up in helices:
3E those "axioms" again. Walk tree to root.
3F Encode. Transmit to undisclosed locale.