THE DAILY TRAVESTY | Error Message Haiku
T H E  D A I L Y  T R A V E S T Y
 
For March 22, 2000
Volume 1, Issue 55
 
 
            A boy's will is the wind's will
            And the thoughts of youth are
                    long, long thoughts.
                   
                               Longfellow,
                               My Lost Youth
 

 
In his book "Iron John," poet Robert Bly posits three archetypal life sequences that are represented by the colors of red, white, and black;  the Hindu "Guanas" that are associated with sacredness in many cultures.  Modern neo-pagans will recognize the red-white-black sequence, the woman's life pattern, as the Goddess's sacred colors;  white for the maiden, passionate red for the woman who comes into the fullness of her sexuality as lover and/or mother, and black for the wise crone.  Bly focuses on the men's sequence, which he sees as red-white-black.  Hot-blooded, warlike young men full of new hormones start as red, and then move into white as they learn about rules and discipline, and end as black when they become wise sages.
 
[There is a] third path, however, which Bly refers to only casually as an "alchemical" path traveled only by magicians and higher seekers... The alchemical path starts with black, instead of ending there; the "black beast" of unaltered coal, unsmelted metal, unrefined earth...
 
                                        Raven Kaldera
 

 
If Computer Error Messages Came in Haiku...
 
 
 
Everything has gone;
Your life's work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?


                                                                        Windows NT crashed.
                                                                        I am the blue screen of death.
                                                                        No one hears your screams.

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

                                                                        Chaos reigns within.
                                                                        Repent, reflect, and reboot.
                                                                        Order shall return.

This site has been moved.
We'd tell you where, but then we'd
Have to delete you.

                                                                        ABORTED effort
                                                                        Close all that you have.
                                                                        You ask way too much.

First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

                                                                        With searching comes loss
                                                                        And the presence of absence
                                                                        "My Novel" not found.
 
 
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone

                                                                        There is a chasm
                                                                        Of carbon and silicon
                                                                        The software can't bridge

To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy

                                                                        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,
                                                                        This document you are seeking
                                                                        Must now be retyped.

The ten thousand things
How long do any persist?
Netscape too is gone.

                                                                        Serious error
                                                                        All shortcuts have disappeared.
                                                                        Mind.  Screen.  Both are blank.

++

daylight licked me into shape i must have been asleep for days and moving lips to breathe her name i opened up my eyes and found myself alone alone alone upon the raging sea that stole the only girl i loved and drowned her deep inside of me  you soft and only  you lost and lonely   you just like heaven