Windows is Shutting Down
Clive James
Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.
Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must be meant to had.
The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.
Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.
"Windows Is Shutting Down" by Clive James from Opal Sunset: Selected poems, 1958–2008. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. I'm sorry if I'm violating copyright law (and I'm sure that would sound fine in a court of law) but I hope this might sell a few books for Clive.
This poem made me laugh out loud twice. Once when I read it to myself and once when I read it out loud to Peter. I'm lucky to have a son who will let me read a poem aloud to him, even a short and funny one.
We had been talking about the use of text as a verb, as in I texted him and he was texting me about the movie. Peter said it irritates him and makes people sound ignorant. I love that he has an opinion about that.
I'm watching Barton Fink, a Coen brothers movie. So far, my favorite part is the old 1940's art deco hotel where Barton lives when he goes to Hollywood. It has long hallways with transoms over the doors and a big front desk. Cool.
It's been unseasonably warm and dry here. Today was windy and it felt like it was going to brew up a storm (it was an uneventful summer for the most part, Miles) but there's nothing on the radar if you can trust radar.
Regis is all done with the family business. Howard had a fine send-off that ended with a lunch at the Yardly Inn, a beautiful restaurant in Bucks County. They don't do church basement dinners there for some reason. Regis and Young Regis were in search of Yuengling to bring home tonight. Yuengling is brewed at the oldest brewery in America, or so it says on their website. It isn't distributed west of PA, making it more desirable. Like Coors used to be when I was in college. Whenever people went out there skiing, they brought back trunksful of it but it really wasn't all that good.
The men are heading home tomorrow afternoon so their ETA is late Wednesday. Long haul.
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