tangled web

sorry for the delay boss

but i spent

a good part

of the new year

tangled in the

world wide web

crawling through

roughly

eleven thousand

three hundred seventy

sites

that contain the word

cockroach

 

data data

everywhere

but not a thought

to think

we used to call this

research

now it is called

surfing

but it is still the same

you dive into the little stuff

and wait for the big wave

to hit

as you know

i am a cockroach

media critic

reincarnated into this

low form

for sins and spins

of a past life

so i am cousinly

curious about

my fellow insects

herewith

are the little things

of my web learning

we roaches have mouths

that move side to side

we bleed white blood

and if we lose our heads

we do not die

we just muddle around

for a week or so

before

s

h

r

i

v

e

l

i

n

g

from thirst

some roaches are pets

others are pests

still others i might add

are poets

the web details

the five thousand

cockroach species

of the world

you can visit

the annual cockroach derby site

quote

pit your nasty crawler against the speediest

roaches in the usa

unquote

the largest roach in the world

has a one foot wing span

roach droppings

can cause asthma

roach picture galleries

show live nudes

an entire subspecies of biologist

is devoted to greater cockroach

understanding

there are even a thousand or more

new improved methods

for exterminating us

yet we populate the earth

in greater numbers than ever before

now boss

this is where i began

to really think

there is a big difference

between information

and knowledge

in the blink of a compound eye

the internet can tell you

more about the roachly race

than a human brain

could store in a

lifetime

but nowhere in the

eleven thousand umpty

websites can you learn

what you really need to know

to wit

just why the roach

has lived so well for

two

hundred

eighty

million

years

despite the efforts of so many

to prevent us from doing so

 

what is the secret

to our survival

how did mere insects

become older and more numerous

than all humanity

 

now boss

you can read on the web

that i can

hold my breath for

forty minutes

you can even see great headlines

in the archives

like

cockroach slain comma

man badly hurt

parenthesis

this is a true story

you can look it up

end parenthesis

so there is this pan millennial myth

of cockroach macho

but i will let you in on the

real secret

we cockroaches spend

a full three quarters of our time

doing absolutely

nothing

at

all

staying out of

evolutionary trouble

is our secret

to survival

so all of you out there

who are surfing for

greater meaning

forget it

you might as well sign up

for alladvantage dot com

so at least you would get

50 cents an hour

for your trouble

because

information by itself

means little more than

so many raindrops

falling on random heads

like the graphic artist

for the you nork times

who found the name of god

in hebrew on the web

and put the holy symbol in a graphic

in that greatly newspaper

jewish folk everywhere brought

the you nork times to temple

to be properly disposed of

because holy law says

those precious symbols

are not to be printed

the artist had information

but no knowledge

a funny human

pj o rourke

once said

the difference between

information and knowledge

is the difference between

christy turlington s

phone number

and christy turlington

well boss

i may not care

a frog s feather

about christy

but the sentiment

speaks to me

i believe i will share

with pj

my secret for immortality

i sleep

therefore

i am

-- bernie