box of something
dedicated to mrs emma p felione, and my old school
(tune: "box of rain" with apologies to the grateful dead)

look out of any spaceship,
any planet, any asteroid, any moon,
maybe the sun is still there,
trying to pull us down into its core

  what do you want me to do?
  the rockets are busted, the anti-grav's thru,
  it's all on a tape we played, one afternoon

pop out of any airlock,
find your way back in before your air is gone.
maybe you'll find a spare tank,
along some corridor on a slimy monster
with one big eye

  what do you want me to do?
  watch and wait while you float around?
  please don't be surprised
  when you see me float on by

look into any robot,
you might find its place and date of manufacture.
has it been made before,
in a factory on the planet you call home?

  what do you want me to do?
  verify-scan your bar-code for you?
  it's all in a cube we viewed, one afternoon

step into fractal chaos,
quantum-leap entropic strange attractors!
maybe your brains are scattered
galaxies of scintillating holographic dust

  what do you want me to do?
  look and choose a viewpoint for you?
  this box of cat will show you where you're at,
  and time will see you thru...

it's just a box of cat, isotope and animal,
a hair-trigger, a neural net,
so how much did you want to bet?

high-energy particles, cloud chamber tracks...
clicking between windows like a mouse on a mac

it's just a box of cat,
i don't know who put her in there,
believe it when you see it, open if you dare

it's just a box of cat, or a cat in a hat,
such a long, long time to be thin,
and a short time to be fat.

also see - hacking song