What to Do While the Sites are Loading…

by Terrie Leigh Relf

Once you’ve cleaned all the crud out of your keyboard (I did that once or twice…yuch!), then what?

Clean the CRT screen.

Check.

Clean all the other schmooges from the side of the tower and other components.

Check.

Sort, stack and shuffle the cascading piles of paper, business cards, and books.

Check.

Now what?

Why not write a poem! You must have a pen and a napkin or a paper bag handy. Or you might also be one of those resourceful people who still believe in lined paper.

What? You’ve never composed a poem before? Sure you have. You live and breathe poetry—especially when you’re waiting for that %&*($*& site to load.

Overflowing with emotion. That’s you.

Call it multi-tasking. As the proverbial saying goes: there’s a poem in everything and everything in a poem.

That said, ever since I added memory, upgraded to WINXP, and changed to digital cable, my puter acts like an old lummox. Call a techie, you say? Ah, the techies…Where are they when you need them in the wee hours of the morning when you can’t sleep and the sites aren’t loading, and…and…and…

Guess what? You can create your own reality with a poem.

Hey-- if Willie Shakespeare were alive today, he would definitely be hooked-up to the net, carry a palm pilot in his dusty overcoat, and would be seen dashing about for an outlet to recharge his laptop so he could write a poem or play (or just pretend to write while eavesdropping at a café near you).

But would he do windows? Therein lies the question…

Shakespeare I’m not, but here’s a poem I wrote while waiting for a site to load (ok, it took me longer than that, but I started it from pure frustration!)

Rendezvous with a Techie

(with apologies to W.S.)

T’is egregious the time that I doth wait
for so many sites to load up or down;
my puter is possessed of loathsome traits
upon which the reasonable would frown.
T’is not oft I behave in such a style,
or feel sore need of a night on the town,
so when he said, ”leave it be for awhile”
I considered the possibilities.
Single women want—nay need—quite a bit,
hardware, boot discs, an updated system.
A techie with tools and an awesome wit,
can subdue the most obstinate of them.
While this may be the stuff of fantasy,
make haste through the portal, be my techie!

Terrie Relf is the poetry editor for http://www.Writers Monthly.US, where she pens the “Poet’s Workshop” column. She also writes the “Mistress of Rhetoric” column for The Espresso, San Diego’s Magazine of Coffee and Café Culture.