How do I love thee?  In a way that's bad,
by which I mean so bad it's almost good.
I need you, and you know it drives me mad.
I want you more than any other could.
And we could write romances, you and me.
I want to hear your Hitchcock movie schtick.
I want your everything.  I hope it's free.
I want you in my window, and you're sick.
And yet you know my raving is a sign
I'd rather we were paramours than friends.
You're outlawed from the moment that you're mine
Until the day our bad romancing ends;
I'll love you in a leather-studded bra.
Rah gaga gaga roma ooh la la.

This day we lay the universe to rest:
behind this pair of eyes that lived and died
a mirror-image, faithfully expressed,
reflects a mirror-universe inside
all memories. This day we thank the Lord
for all these shining moments held within
this mind where human memories are stored.
And this shall be the moment they begin
to shatter, to become ten thousand stories
reflecting human life in all its beauty:
each smile, each poem, every sunset's glories,
that call to those remaining of their duty
to see this story speaks and never fails;
to call, recall again ten thousand tales.

It saddened me to know you from afar:
I never heard the whimpers that you gave
when scratched beneath the chin, or saw you save
your mistress from a cat, or passing car;
you never barked as I approached your door;
you never licked my face; I never heard
your nails on wood, or saw you chase a bird,
and now you’re gone, I cannot any more.
You know, it makes me wonder, Oliver:
I’ve usually dismissed as pious lies
those tales of rainbow bridges in the skies
where faithful friends will wait as once they were
to meet us in the lands beyond the light.
But since you’ve left, I find I hope they’re right.

I thought I recognised some guy
asleep off Berkeley Square.
His face had such a peaceful look
behind his ***** hair;

his beard, the scabs across his head,
I thought I'd seen before,
if anyone that I would know
was sleeping in a door.

On second thoughts, it wasn't him.
Or, well, I'll never know.
A glance was all the time it took
to pass him in the snow.

See you our server farm that hums
And serves HTTP?
It's spun its disks and done its sums
Ever since Berners-Lee.

See you our mainframe spewing out
The Towers of Hanoi?
It's moved recursive discs about
Since Babbage was a boy.

See you our ZX81
That prints the ABCs?
That very program used to run
With Lovelace at the keys.

Magnetic floppy disks and hard,
And tape with patience torn,
And eighty columns on a card,
And so was England born!

She is not any common thing,
Water or Wood or Air,
But Turing's Isle of Programming,
Where you and I will fare.

St Henry was for Finland, and before he took the land
He wandered through Uppsala with a beer-mug in his hand.
For through his understanding of the Finns and what they are
If you should serve him sahti, it must be in a jar.

St Patrick was for Ireland, and before the snakes were out
He ate a steak, and washed it down with pints of Guinness stout.
For since he was from Ireland, people shouldn't make mistakes:
Unless you give him Guinness, then you mustn't give him steaks.

St Louis was from France, and before he was the king,
He bought champagne and cheeses and he ate like anything.
For since he was from France, I must say it once again:
Unless you give him cheeses, then there must be no champagne.

Jill retweeted what I wrote,
forwarding to all her friends.
Time, you thief, who loves to gloat
over hopes and bitter ends,
say my loves and lines are bad,
say that life itself defeated me,
say I'm growing old, but add,
Jill retweeted me.