Doing the Midnight Shift

So far removed from old careers, we labor now on novel tasks, As soldiers who, in other years, left homes for distant regions. We try to nudge our friends awake, their faces blank as glass-eyed masks; Condemned to sleeplessness and fears, we work in nervous legions.

Our plight began in innocence; not evil thought or motive rough. Our fathers merely sought to count, with vacuum currents streaming. They shaped a language for the job, not subtle, but arcane enough To close a guild, and made inside a world to match their dreaming.

With time the elder masters passed, and I became a craftsman too. We made new tongues and kept the old; a swirling game of Babel. Our tools became so sharp and quick; we always chose the fun, the new. We didnt praise the wise or fair; we praised the smart and able.

Our work was magnet for the few who found a love, who swelled with life When carving realms on keyboards and exulting in their powers. No worse, in that, than others who can build a spire or wield a knife, Who live more for their prowess than the value of their towers.

Young love leaps in without a look, assured of loves eternal worth. In love with not the other soul but with the dream that wraps us. So we, impassioned, bricked up code (a solid feel) with easy mirth. In love with tools, we bricked ourselves, not seeing how it traps us.

Love hurts when intuitions miss, when dear illusions fail to fit, But then, with luck, we like what's real, and shed our dream creation. And though we wed the first we kiss, we still can make a life of it, If we can build a solid base beneath infatuation.

We soldier now with shovels, less to win than to be reconciled; My guild must shore up cornerstones of sloppy education. Though we (from nothing) built our lover, genie, playmate, glowing child, It truly lives, and so we fear a trial separation.

We fear we cannot live without the fractious toys that wait on us, We'll likely hold them close again when wiser; fond but wary. Well cast aside the ones that break, and then rebuild (but more robust), And try to be less hasty when a microchip we marry.

Copyright 1999 Craig Hagstrom All Rights Reserved

-- Please Dont (blow@my.cover), July 01, 1999

Answers

dear please don't,

please don't!!!!

.

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net.), July 01, 1999.

Craig,

Thanks. Anymore "Doing the Midnight Shift" coming up? Post 'em if ya got 'em.

-- RUOK (RUOK@yesiam.com), July 01, 1999.

Craig;

SUPERB!!

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), July 01, 1999.

Lovely, wonderful, well-done! A true pleasure to read. thank you.

-- Mommacares (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), July 01, 1999.