I am an old book troglodyte

one who composes on paper

and types up the result

as many times as need be.

The computer scares me,

its crashes and codes,

its links with spies and gunshot,

its text that looks pre-published

and perhaps has been.

I don’t know who is reading

what I write on a carriage

that doesn’t move or ding.

I trust the spoor of botch,

whiteouts where thought deepened,

wise freedom from Spell Check,

sheets to sell the National Library.

I fear the lore

of that baleful misstruck key

that fills a whiskered screen

with a writhe of child pornography

and the doors smashing in

and the cops handcuffing me

to a gristlier video culture

coralline in an ever colder sea.