The Day Before the Internet

On the day before the internet the vast stone cogs

that drove the analogue world groaned with foreboding.

Birds flew backwards in the end of days sky.

Dragons paused for stopped before devouring knights

and considered lighter snacks,

and painted maidens in pointy hats

no more breathlessly considered contrary wishes

to be deflowered or not.

The serpent that wrapped around the equator

untied its own mortan knot and fled,

knowing something was up.

Steampunk minstrels wailed, for they sensed

something was strange.

Odd prognosticators divined the coming of wisdom

in the gizzards of the cockatrice,

the plucks and other offal of endangered griffins.

Something wonderful was coming in the chalk drawn stars,

in the fountain pen burst meteors driven over heaven.

'Tomorrow, all shall know everything

and harmony will reign.'

The last day was still medieval for us all,

a monochrome landscape where grey dust

settled on our poor sapless skulls.

We waited, bated, for All Wisdom to shower us

with benediction in our sepia lives.

Then, all hail, it was unleashed and shared,

the holy tidal wave washed away our ignorance.

And the great unwise were delivered forever and ever

from the ignorance that rained ten thousand years

in the days before the internet.