13 April 1999

Office 97

while it rained rain in illinois
it rained bombs in Yugoslavia
while typewriters became wordprocessors
printers jammed
and writers stared back at their words on the screen
networked computers had caused communication anarchy
for a short time
and all the documents traceable
and recorded forever in untouchable vaults
and there would be barely time to appreciate

a time with nobody to check for politics or spelling errors

i can be blamed for writing this poem
maybe for years
maybe until the network resets itself
while america takes over
with a network of soldiers trained to obey
pixels

i wrote some stuff against the government
once
i hope nobody read any of it
or remembers

i wish i hadn't used a computer to do it
i wish i hadn't used Office 97

a political poem cannot be revised