Of Script and Type

A meditation in verse on the natures of Script and Type

Script

O Script, O breath of pen as ink exhaled
o’er spoken words of men through time prevailed.
the passed down spoken word does time corrupt,
and silence slays the spoken breath abrupt,
but even script by faintest ink preserves
more faithfully than strongest memory’s reserves.

O Script, O breath of pen exhaled as ink;
your line of words tell what I wish and think.
Your line a labored walk and frenzied dance,
of both my crafted thoughts and mindless chance.
You O Script still speak the written word
that they may by the distant scribes be heard.

O Script, O craft of pen on parchment made,
the loss of fleeting memory forbade;
Script: speak my thoughts through time and space,
to my audiences far and wide
and aft last breath declares my death
and I the author scribe have died
though my thoughts in ink you keep
I hope that they in memories reside—
not mine but in the audience you reap—
that my words in mankind’s living thoughts abide.

Type

O Type, O soldier of the press’ host
volume, duplicates and speed you boast.
Quick to spew a stream of words as text,
all the scribes of pen you highly vex.
The power of the writ and read, once rare,
by Type now scattered chaff found everywhere.

O Type, O soldier of the hosts of press;
you magnify the thoughts of worst and best
that truth and falsehood once did bright minds wade
now form a sea that lit’rate fools have made.
And even as our words did you make cheap
your deluge made the truth’s own price grow steep.

O Type, O pixel, bit, and printed letter
you changed the world for both the worse and better
Type: cast this verse upon the web world wide
thus my thoughts on you to all propose,
among the sea of brethren blogs to hide,
not esteemed as lofty script, suppose.
Text that scripted treasures once preserved
now by Type made such that we dispose
the deluge of the media’s reserves
from which we find that there is no repose.