My life as a tree

Sometimes I feel like a tree
My roots spread out below
While my twisting branches reach for the sky
My roots soak up the nourishing rain
My unfurled leaves soak up the sun
A gentle breeze rocks me
And I breathe deeply, and sigh
Peaceful in my life as a tree

Pentapede Poems III

An Ambush

As I was hanging in the tree,
A little birdy spotted me
"Foolish thing, so plain to see,
I'll make a munch-crunch snack of thee!"

But birdies are an impulsive lot.
They never have much time for thought.
If he hadn't been so hot-to-trot...
He'd not be for our dinner caught!

Tranquility

The quiet forest
And the bustle of the Nest:
Home, tranquility

Twikus 1 & 2

Violist
----
Safely nestled in
the sweet harmonic bosom
of the orchestra.

(no title)
----
Knocking things over,
Galumphing through the condo.
Kitty is naughty!

Reproduce like a Dandelion

Inspired by Cory Doctorow's latest Locus column, Think Like a Dandelion.

Reproduce like a dandelion!
Spread your seed to the internet wind!
Let it take hold where it may;
Let ev'ry shy patch of mind peeking through
Each crack and crevice
Offer it the briefest solace
That it may take root
And bloom
Throwing your seed further and further afield
Upon the wind until,
Like the dandelion,
Your offspring has taken root
In every corner of the globe!

Trying to Compile from a Buggy Codebase

In tribute to Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Trying to Compile from a Buggy Codebase

Whose errored code this is, I know:
We fired him three years ago.
But still his bug-filled code is here,
And makes the server run so slow.

My chest starts to constrict with fear,
And my eyes begin to tear—
And my knees will even shake!—
With each bug report I hear.

Why do I permit this ache,
This long-gone other man's mistake,
To cause me now to moan and weep?
'Cause ev'ry night the thing will break!

Each change I make breaks something deep.
But I have unit tests to keep
Me sane these days before I sleep,
Yes, sane these days before I sleep.

More Pentapede Poems //o\\\

You know, pretty soon people will start thinking I've lost my mind and given it to the pentapedes.

They'd be right.

A pentapede I recently captured made this offering to be released:

There once was a pentapede stuck,
And ended up all out of luck.
It tried to rhyme,
But ran out of time,
When it was suddenly hit by a truck!

They also offer these alternative lines to the previous poem:

The Pentapede a Monster is,
Giant with a Scary Hiss!
This fright'ning hiss will chill your Heart
As it tears your limbs apart!

On another note, they adored the movie Cloverfield.

Pentapede Poems

Here are a couple of poems about Pentapedes, based on the form of Cethegrande, a 13th century English poem. The first few lines follow:

Cethegrande is a fis
ðe moste ðat in water is;
ðat tu wuldes seien get,
gef ðu it soge wan it flet,
ðat it were á neilond
ðat sete one ðe se sond.

The first is one that the Pentapedes seem to really like:

The Pentapede a Monster is,
Ferocious with a deaf'ning hiss.
They suck the blood of hapless foes
And suffer none to cause them woes.
With fangs like knives they bite and bite,
And lay eggs in your ears at night.
Resplendent in their armored suits,
They hide in shipping crates of fruits,
And jumping out in grocery stores,
They run and hide along the floors.
When unwary shoppers legs they see,
They climb aboard with merry glee!
For soon their troops will be in place
To obliterate the human race.

The next one they don't like so much...

The Pentapede a monster is,
But a small 'un, with a sickly hiss.
Its dullëd fangs cause folks annoyance
When it flails them with flamboyance.
Its desperate pleas to lay its eggs
Result in having fewer legs.
Delusional, it flies like a bat,
Or dances and sings in tails and spats.
It thinks it's a car, a truck or rock
And believes that it can talk.
Its golden 'armor' is deep-fried,
Crusty fat on its outside.
And though this creature thinks it's great,
A quick extinction is its fate.

How Foolish I Was

How foolish I was!
How foolish I was!
I thought access to culture a fundamental right

How foolish I was!
How foolish I was!
I thought that free culture was the right fight

But now I can see!
But now I can see!
What's important's making money, every day of the week

But now I can see!
But now I can see!
The whole world's at my fingertips - ten cents a peek