silent night

boss

casablanca the cyberghost

appeared on my screen this morning

to tell me the story

the world has been waiting

and waiting

to hear

bernie

said she

i have just come from

a place in space so deep

that only spirits

and sometimes nasa

can go

there

i found a fellow

built to probe

the secrets of

the red planet of

mars

and whose flashy job

it is is to tell

those secrets to

us earthlings

it is hard to imagine

a more stellar career

yet he was sad

polar lander

let out a long and low sigh

as if the endless metric tons

of the universe

weighed upon his very soul

dear lander

said i

why don't you phone home

the whole world is waiting

waiting

dying

to hear your voice

hitting the nasa web site by the millions

hoping you

will pip a single chip

in their

general direction

speak

exclamation point

finally

lander

spoke

dear spirit

said he

to tell you the truth

i

am

too

tired

to phone home

i have traveled

cross four hundred

seventy million

miles

through time zones

unimaginable

for eleven months now

thinking of nothing

but my destination

mars

you thought not

of the journey itself

i asked that sad pile

of tempered steel

nothing

said he

only of

the goal

mars

so here i am

at the assigned destination

on the ultimate monday morning

of life

wondering why

i have to get

out of bed

all the while

dreaming

dreaming

of sleep

the lander continued

this entire decade has been

one bloody blur

of racing

racing to get on top

to be more efficient

to reach more people

with smaller gadgets

and faster means

so to that end

nasa built me

smaller faster better

and look where it got me

to me

the lander went on

the decade of the ninteen nineties

has done nothing

but put the tired

in retired

i am

re

tiring

let me sleep

but lander

said i

the world is in chaos

half the people think

nasa is a fool

that either

you are not y two k

compliant

or someone forgot

to convert your feet to meters again

the other half think

the truth is out there

and you have seen it

maybe it is creatures

underground on the south pole

of mars

that have eaten you alive

or

maybe it is

god

lander smiled

a weak smile

i like the world not knowing

he said

it makes my chips tingle

let them guess

let them guess all century long

to imagine is much more fun

than the rather dull

predictable

answer i could give them

so you know if there

is life

on the red planet

i asked

do tell

that would spoil everything

said lander

let future missions

be imperiled

let our reach to the stars

stall at mars

with my silence

i am now

much more than data

much more than chips

that make trips

or a collection of

productive parts

with a russian experiment

paining my side

i am now enigma

paradox

mystery

by being nobody

i can really be

somebody

in zen

nothing is the highest

state

of being

before being

there was non-being

so with my silence

i am taking humans

back to the very beginning

to the simon and garfunkel song

the sounds of silence

i shall sleep here

nebulous

alone

unchanging

emptiness

and with that

his signal died

well boss

as soon as casablanca

finished her story

she too disappeared

back into cyberspace

i wouldn't be surprised

if that lusty siren spirit

returns to mars for

a visit

poor lander

he really does

evoke this past decade

for here we are

a world smart

efficient

and fast enough to

reach the planets

but too tired to do anything

once we get there

-- bernie