It would be foolish to watch as day recedes into night
believing that night was the final apocalypse of our world.
 
But watching the minute clicks of the clock on the floor
makes me believe I have become something my mother
 
warned me against.  A monster of the mechanical world.
One who lives only through the electronic life of things
 
already dead.   A poem would revive me here.   Let’s see,
if this were yesterday I would have more to say.
 
But now things are down in a Dante sort of way,  deeper
than any Italian hell,  and darker than real estate on the moon.
 
There is more emotion in this slow modem’s response
than in my last AA gambler’s cure.   And with crashes coming
 
like sudden awakenings,  I wait for my retirement to be
sucked through the power cord like a snake down a hole.