Post-millennium Pigeon

Sunday Style, New Sunday Times, Malaysia

Doggerel by JOHAN
Picture by ROGER TAN

The prophets of doom,
In the cabinet room,
Are all huddled in serious discussions.
The bug Y2K,
Is on its way,
And they're braced for severe repercussion.

Tamagoths are dying,
And aircraft aren't flying,
Your shaver's kaput and your handphone's dead.
We can't calculate,
At our previous rate,
'cos now we must work out the sums in our head.

But pigeons they hope,
Will be able to cope,
When the last of the microchips fails.
We're tireless commuters,
We don't need computers,
So it's who will deliver millennial mails.

Our washing machines,
Won't clean our jeans,
And we can't trim our beards with our razors.
We must put them on hold,
As most are controlled,
By microchip, motherboards, circuits and lasers.

From the KLIA,
To Heathrow UK,
Is a journey us pigeons must now undertake.
All aircraft are grounded,
For reasons well founded,
Their systems all down for a microchip's sake.

Now the world has recourse,
To the dog-cart and horse,
And we carrier pigeons are flying for Reuters.
We're no longer fired,
Or retrenched or retired,
For a hard-working pigeon is not one who loiters.

The cars won't start,
Or buses depart,
And even the Concorde has gone on the blink.
For planes supersonic,
And thing electronic,
And more widely affected than most of us think.

Under Nelson's column,
A speaker most solemn,
Addressed in deep tones of foreboding.
You can store and recall,
From here to Pall Mall,
But on Nelson, refrain from down-loading.

My record's okay,
I'm happy to say,
And it's not my intention to spoil it.
But as I'm aware,
Trafalgar Square,
Is a pigeon's first choice for a toilet.