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Culture on Demand:
Snow Falling on Screen
Bytes of traditional Japanese poetry
By STAN STALNAKER
February 19, 2000
Web posted at 7 a.m. Hong Kong time, 6 p.m. EST
They say that poetry is the song of the soul, but I for one am not often able to enjoy it. This is why I chuckled when a friend in Tokyo recently sent me a series of Japanese haiku poetry, specially designed for the Internet age.
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Each only 17 syllables, they eloquently describe the little dramas that litter the digital highway. All the rage on the Japan circuit, the poems have nevertheless restored my faith in the sense of humor flowing from the world's second-largest economy:
Have a file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located but
Countless more exist.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent and reboot.
Order shall return.
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask way too much.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
And on it goes. I think I need of cup of tea to sip while we reboot.
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