Xeno Hemlock

This poem is dedicated to my fellows who:

• knew the sound of a dial-up modem connecting to the Internet
• feared the Blue Screen of Death
• hated the “tick tick” sound a floppy disk made when it had gone bad
• waited an hour or two or three to finish downloading a five-megabyte mp3 file

Remember the good old times when all of these was new.
Download software then connect with people you hardly knew
Flash fake faces, type as fast as the speed of light
Waste your hours every morning until the night.

For some joke, you rolled on the floor and laugh and laugh and laugh
When the other party went mute you abuzed the Buzz
Good old times, now they’re gone, probably archived too
Once the frontier, now ignored, oh, my dear Yahoo!

Header photo by Max DeRoin from Pexels.