with an Apple Macintosh
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.
- Analysis ( hide ) Places tech's petty squabbles next to timeless nature. It pits the frustrating, proprietary world of early personal computing against the unchanging rituals of the natural world, a classic move for this writer who always found the eternal in the gutter.
- Form mirrors the fragmented tech landscape. The short, abrupt lines and jarring line breaks feel like a system error or a jammed disk drive, a blunt formal experiment compared to his usually raw but fluid lines about bars and racetracks.
- A sneer at capitalist nonsense masked as progress. The whole poem lists incompatible systems, echoing his lifelong disgust with any system - be it jobs, government, or now, consumer tech - designed to trap and frustrate the ordinary person.
- The punchline is pure, old-school him. After the tech rant, the switch to the turkey buzzard is classic: a crude, ugly bird performing a mating ritual is the real, unchanging operating system, undercutting all the human silliness that came before.
- It reads like a prophecy for today's walled gardens. Written in the early days, it perfectly predicts our modern frustrations with incompatible apps, operating systems, and digital ecosystems, making a 40-year-old poem feel ripped from a current tech forum. (ai)
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