Search Engine

April 26 2012

My computer has a search engine.

This sleek machine

that connects me to the world

at the speed of light.

With soft mysterious whirrrs

and unaccountable bursts

of static purring,

its bright all-knowing glow.

Yet a name that evokes

Victorian factories.

Iron-works, and steam,

the hands-on ambition

of industry.

Who knew

computer guys

could be so tongue-in-cheek?

The delightful incongruity

of a search engine

on the digital freeway.

The rent and squeal

of steel-on-steel.

An iron behemoth, belching steam

cinders, soot
and grease,

hellish firebox

blistering heat.

Stoked with low grade coal

that turns everything

black.

My lap top is cool, clean, sleek.

As weightless electrons

do my bidding.

And the keyboard, willing

effects its silky

tap-tap-tap,

entrancing me

in a crisp blue glow.

So distant, detached

from the power-plants, and servers

vast optical-cables

that gird the earth.

Like Archimedes, given a long enough lever,

I feel as if I could move the world

with a single stroke.