Some predicted

this countdown of a millennium’s fervor

would produce chaos

computers speaking Babel tongues

to each other, vainly

clicking to make sense

of disparate systems

 

Nothing happened

 

The planet caromed on

to new warming and freezing

a patient mathematician discovered

an even larger prime number

a tiny brick in the wall

of a language

most others couldn’t understand

 

Husbands, wives, politicians, rivals

continued to misinterpret

each other’s gobble gook phrases

enjoying the new era’s crop

of meaningless slogans

 

While the computers clicked on

manipulating endless rows

of ones and zeros