snow white but is it really?

welcome, sister snow
welcome, brother crystalline
hello, fury wind
be here, December
swirl here, colorless dance

techless techNOcrat techie tetchy touchy

This quasi-Luddite, pro-tech, ante-vellum note of paradoxical interest comes from the San Francisco Chronicle's website, back on November 30, 2011:

Imagine your workplace without email. That fantasy (or nightmare) will soon be reality for thousands of people who work for information technology firm Atos.

The company, which has offices in the Houston area and in Norwalk, Conn., manages IT for the Olympics. Its clients include oil field services firms Schlumberger and Baker Hughes.

ABC news says Atos found that most email messages turn out to be a waste of time:

CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months.

The rule would apply to 74,000 employees in 42 countries and will hit close to home for some Houstonians. In April, Atos unveiled plans to locate one of its U.S. headquarters in Sugar Land.

Breton, who served as French finance minister before heading up the IT company, told the Wall Street Journal he hasn’t sent a work email in the three years he’s led the firm; he expects employees to focus instead on communicating via instant message or through an internal social network akin to Facebook.

In a statement about the policy, Breton compared spam to smog:

“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives. At Atos we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”

winter solstice

now that that has passed we can say with confidence that summer is on the way not almost here no none of that but lightening the journey lighting the way leaving a crack tilting the door open and what is the origin of the word solstice anyway I'd venture a tipping toward or away from the sun sonny boy

just for the heck of it

click

right

here

it won't harm or hurt

or threaten

browse

and scroll
and click
here
all you want
stay if you like
or wander away
no stay
wait
laugh
or cry
or pause
here
or
here
even
here

20 verbs

run ruin absent end finish mend maul primp prime curl

wend zoom doom brush gargle climb swallow syncopate twirl coax

readers

I use to have them
blogreaders
in the days of ephemera
passing dew like
morning burnt off
the backyard
or in the evening moistening my soles

I used to have readers
here
and there

but that was in the days of
salad and conversation
flirtation and flotation
wording and warding
off and on
remember those ways?

another year

has passed
amassing volume and lightness
we call them birthdays
fair enough
or anniversaries thereof
one day at a
timeless march to the cemetery
inexorable
no no not depressing
inevitable for you
and me
and him
and her
and them
and us
pause

white

speaking of which
where is the snow
whose absence is present
white space
white noise
blank
faded grass
brought the mower to the basement
let it snow
let it snow
let us know
lettuce no

drawing nigh

the end of the year approaches
which means my list of Books Read
white and blue
coming soon to
a theater near you
coo-coo-ca-choo

December haiku

tawny dried milkweed
skeletal branches bleached bare
riot of green pines

imag-engine

o Tannenbaum

we cut down our Christmas tree today
from Romagnolis' farm
Canaan or Balsam
full
lush
scented
no snow yet
tree unadorned
does that mean trimmed or untrimmed?