Wednesday, March 01, 2006

A Poem, written by my 7th grade son. Want to give him a grade?

An Ode to Technology


Once upon a time, in a village far away,
There lived a man who had a very bad day.

For, you see, he nearly brought judgment day quite close,
Which was not on his routine (and he also singed his nose).

This is how it happened, I will tell you very soon;
It all started one day when he was Googling the moon.

“A full moon comes once a month. It’s often very pretty.
It showers things with light,” it said, “In the county and the city.”

Now, this all seems quite normal (except that it rhymes),
for a computer to be saying, but it was quite different this time.

For the words were not on the screen, as I assume you suspected,
but from a mouth, which appeared, and was most unexpected.

There it was, floating in the center of the screen,
with teeth that were extremely white and sparkling clean.

Its tongue looked so perfect, so healthy, germless red,
and gums that were un-swollen, and pink as a flamingo’s head.

At first the man had thought it was a pop-up add for mouthwash,
but when he realized what it really was, he said, “Oh my gosh!”

For it was a warning sign that could mean only one thing.
He had brought all technology to life by making the computer sing.

Apparently he had entered an extremely long code,
by pushing all the right buttons, with the P.C. on the right mode.

He knew all this because the mouth had begun a speech
that got the man more worried than James of the Giant Peach.

“The chances of the Code being broken are quite slim,
and you, you’ve just done it. You’ve brought technology to life, Jim.”

“What, how’d you know my name?” asked Jim. “The code knows all.
And now, thanks to you, the universe will fall!”

And then something happened, something very strange;
The mouse that he was holding bit him at short range.

The speaker (not the mouth) sent a sonic field projection,
Which blew him back ten feet, quite to his objection.

His automatic printer started pelting him with paper,
and the air humidifier started emitting water vapor.

Then the lamp above him shined so bright,
the entire house was filled with piercing light.

Jim was temporarily blinded, he stumbled all around,
and was blown back suddenly by the speakers’ awful sound.

He fell back and tripped on his mini vacuum cleaner,
which was sucking items up, and growing all the meaner.

The sink started drenching him mercilessly with water,
then the T.V. flashed bright colors and the furnace became hotter.

Jim began to sweat, he couldn’t stand the heat;
he ran outside the door, and his car he chanced to meet.

The window wipers began to make rude hand remarks;
the headlights glared at him and the exhaust pipes shot out sparks.

The engine started up and the car did something mean.
It charged at poor old Jim, and hit him in the spleen!

Jim was sent flying for the third time that day,
he landed in the garage in a state of disarray.

Then it was the electric door’s turn to be mean;
it had the cruelness of heart to turn into a guillotine!

Everything seemed to go in slow motion for Jim.
He saw the door coming down, heading straight for him.

He move his head just in time, he was nearly beheaded.
There was now a long, deep crater, for which the door is credited.

Then Jim heard a sound, coming from the yard.
He looked out the door and felt like a retard.

He had just fallen for a very simple trap,
as there was a robot next to him. It raised it’s arm and WHAP!

Jim was woken up by an ear-splitting scream,
with a pain in his head and an ache in his spleen.

He got up and saw that he was in New York,
and by the looks of things, the Big Apple was stuck with forks.

Huge towering robots made from every electrical item
were tearing New York apart; cars blew up behind him.

Buildings collapsed and monuments fell. Jim was very gruff;
he shouted at the top of his lungs, “As if this city hasn’t had enough?”

He became furious at himself for causing such destruction,
and began to think up a plan, ignoring explosion eruptions.

Suddenly, and idea popped into his head.
He went in search of nature’s iron and lead.

When he had found his abundance, he was very glad.
He started up a fire, and put in all he had.

The metal melted together, which was exactly what he needed,
he molded it into a robot suit and hoped not to be mistreated.

He let it cool, then put it on, and reviewed his battle stations;
and tried to act as if the robots and he had strong relations.

He went back to the broken up city, made the sign of the Cross,
walked stiffly to a robot and said, “I need to see the boss.”

The robot picked him up, put it’s arm back, and threw Jim;
he groaned and felt queasy. This flying was getting to him.

As he soared through the air, he wished he would stop.
But he sort of changed his mind when he landed on a cop.

The cop shouted suddenly, Jim was quite afraid.
He expected the cop to chase him, but on the ground he stayed.

Jim realized what happened, he put on an innocent face,
and whistled to himself. He was such a disgrace.

Then he remembered why he was there,
to destroy the robots’ leader and win fair and square.

He wondered were it was, he looked all around,
and when he looked under a bush, there it was found.

Jim was so terrified, he couldn’t even speak.
He could merely open his mouth and create some sort of squeak.

For it was the computer, with its clean, evil tongue;
and its all-knowing smile. Jim felt like dung.

The mouth let out a cruel, high pitched laugh,
which was interrupted by a loud, metal crash.

For Jim had brought his iron fist straight down.
And the computer laid there, crumpled without a single sound.

But then it seemed as if Jim’s efforts were in vain,
because the computer flew back together, completely un-slain.

Jim whacked his forehead, which caused a lot of friction.
Jim clenched his fists and shouted, “Stupid Fantasy Fiction!”

But then Jim noticed something; the mouth’s, er, mouth was moving.
But there was no evil, quaking voice, which was quite soothing.

Then, quite to his horror, he was lifted off the ground,
and was gliding swiftly but smoothly, without making a sound.

He passed over the cop, who got off the street
and walked around backwards with shuffling feet.

He passed through New York and saw something very weird.
The building flew together and the robots, which Jim feared,

Were all moving backwards, sucking cars into their hands,
and setting them down gently, unharmed, on the land.

Jim then left New York and floated over the nation
to his California home, which was on probation.

The windows all were smashed and everything was broken,
but it all was all slowly fixing. The mouth that had spoken

that horrible speech was on that screen and moving silently.
And all those electrical items that had treated him so violently

Were moving around backwards un-breaking things here and there. Until the mouth disappeared and Jim sank into his chair.

He took a deep breath, enjoying the peaceful air,
and in a satisfied voice said, “Fair and square.”

4 Comments:

Blogger Philothea Rose said...

wow, your son is quite the creative talent! Tell him that his poem was so compelling and I couldn't wait to get to the end.

March 01, 2006  
Blogger ukok said...

100%

:-)

March 01, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That was great! I think there's probably a cool adolescent-aged book in the making here...find an illustrator! Or do it yourself!
Wonderful!
Very creative.

Congratulations on having such a gifted son!

March 01, 2006  
Blogger Mimi said...

Wow! What an incredible poem.

I'd give it an A+++++.

March 08, 2006  

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