This is my poem
it’s my literary hack
proof that good code is poetry.
It’s my little chance to give back.

This poem is copyleft,
you are free to distribute it, and diffuse it
dismantle it, and abuse it
reproduce it, and improve it
and use it
for your own ends
and with your own ending

This is an open source poem
Entering the public domain
Here’s the source code,
the rest remains
for you to shape, stretch and bend
add a hash bang slash if you want
share it out amongst your friends

Because I didn’t write this poem, I molded it.
picked up the lines in cyberspace and refolded it
as I was surfing on over here, Steal This Poem v1.3
rescued leftover ideas
on their way to /dev/null.
Found screwed up fragments
and put them to use
as complementary tag bits.

Because, think about it
I can’t tell you anything truly new.
There can only be few more new ideas to be thought through.
So should we treat them as rare commodities, high value oddities?
Probe the arctic reserves and other sensitive ecologies
for new ideas buried deep beneath the permafrost?
hunt them out of the cultures till the cultures are lost?
then suffocate them with patent protection?
No! we should re use and recycle them
Pile our public spaces high with ideas beyond anyone’s imagining..

So I steal a riff here and a rhyme there,
a script here and a argument there
pass them on around the net,
roll the words, add a tweak
here go on…
now don’t you feel like a supreme geek?

This poem is indebted to Linus Torvalds, Eric S. Raymond, Stephen Hawking and Richard Stallman,
This poem is indebted to all the words I’ve read and the codes I’ve known
This poem is a composite of intellect, yours and mine.
This poem is RIPPED OFF! every single slash bash and line

Because intellectual property is theft
and piracy our only defense left against the thought police.
when no thought is new
its just rewired, refined, remastered and reproduced
The revolution will be plagiarized
The revolution will not happen if our ideas are corporatised.
So STEAL THIS POEM
Take it and use it
for your own ends
and with your own ending

This poem is copyleft,
All rights are reversed