Dead Programmer's Cafe

Tag: Worm

  • The Worm Oroborous

    I was reading Barrington J. Bayley’s The Knights of the Limits which Amazon in its wisdom recommended for my consumption. The title story is about space travelers from a universe which inhabitants move in patterns through discrete points in space, like chess pieces.

    This got me to think – 5 days a week a stainless steel worm moves me in a roughly L shaped pattern, from one tower into another, from one island onto another. And in both towers there are two computer screens and a chair. The two Ls form a Kekule snake, the Worm Oroborous.

    I like to think that I am a Knight, but I am really a Pawn.

  • Poetry in Motion

    Came up with this during my morning subway ride:

    Magnetic flux in a white glass tube
    Bounces greenish light
    From stainless steel guts
    Of a stainless steel worm
    That travels beneath the waves.

    An empty Greek cup
    That held a drink
    Of infusion of coffee beans
    Is clenched in a hand of a woman who sleeps
    Not seeing any dreams.

    A holy book in hands of a man
    Holds a promise of mystical lore
    Wrapping words of wise men
    Of time gone by
    Around holier word of fore.

    A cat in a box
    With plastic doors
    Looks outside with fear.
    The stainless steel worm
    Makes no sense
    To a being with claws and hair.

    Keys in a clip
    On a belt of a man
    In a jacket of steely-blue cloth
    Can open doors
    In a tower of grey
    Containing amazing wealth.

    A plastic red sack
    With symbols of black
    Carries cheap and expensive treats
    That smell of a place
    That is far, far away
    Not connected by rails.

    The ceramic song
    Of passing stops
    A swirling mosaic sets
    In the minds of passengers riding the worm
    That eats the electric thread.