I found this gem in my 'keepers' Email folder .... I hope that you enjoy it too. G

clancy@theoverflow

I had written him a text

Which I'd sent, hoping the next

Time he came in mobile coverage

He'd have time to say hello. But I'd heard he'd lost his iPhone,

So I emailed him from my phone,

Just addressed, on spec, as follows:

clancy@theoverflow

And the answer redirected

Wasn't quite what I'd expected

And it wasn't from the shearing mate

Who'd answered once before.

His ISP provider wrote it

And verbatim I will quote it:

'This account has been suspended:

You won't hear from him no more.'

In my wild erratic fancy

Visions come to me of Clancy:

Out of reach of mobile coverage

Where the Western rivers flow.

Instead of tapping on the small screen,

He'd be camping by the tall green

River gums a pleasure

That the town folk never know.

Well, the bush has friends to meet him

But the rest of us can't greet him:

Out there, even Telstra's network

Doesn't give you any bars.

He can't blog the vision splendid

Of the sunlit plains extended

Or tweet the wondrous glory

Of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting at the keyboard

And I'm too stressed out to be bored

As I answer all the emails

By the deadlines they contain

While my screen fills with promotions

For 'V1aggra' and strange potions

And announcements of the million-dollar

Prizes I can claim.

But the looming deadlines haunt me

And their harrying senders taunt me

That they need response this evening

For tomorrow is too late!

But their texts, too quickly ended,

Often can't be comprehended

For their writers have no time to think

They have no time to wait.

And I sometimes rather fancy

That I'd like to trade with Clancy:

Just set up an email bouncer

Saying 'Sorry, had to go.'

While he faced in an inbox jamming

Up with deadlines and with spamming

As he signed off every message:

clancy@theoverflow

Joe Wolfe, with apologies to Banjo Patterson and his Clancy of the Overflow.

edit  .. on my copy & paste, I lost all the line spacings, so I had to reformat it.  A pleasant task