once upon a time there was a man named paul myron anthony linebarger

he wrote a magic book called Norstrilia and one of its chapters was headed “Counsels, Councils, Consoles and Consuls”

and he nimbly interwove advice dispensation and diplomacy convening and computer interfaces and “Lords of the Instrumentality” in that one astonishingly brief chapter

.

such wordplay danced through the novel at the service of a story of mind-bending majesty of scope

and i am forever grateful to the man whose pen name “Cordwainer Smith” is itself wordplay since a cordwainer makes shoes and a smith forges metal

so by way of riding on his coattails or paying him hommage my poem ties together five like words

the guilty man was hung/and from his sad life sprung/his dying breath turned cloudy in the cold

insurance for his widow/encountered har-maggido/with allegations flying truth be told

but she had an attorney/who helmed her courtroom journey/and proved no suicide nor breach of trust

so forthwith she was paid/and all thought she had made/the best of things…as we all can, nay, must

.

cordwainer smith was a punster/as am I/and in Norstrilia he named a character Houghton Syme/whom the protagonist Rod McBan called “Old Hot and Simple”

and now i have an odd confession/that demonstrates how dr. linebarger has influenced me

eighteen years ago i worked for the healthcare system then known as scottsdale healthcare

whose ceo at the time was a man named tom sadvary

and i thought of him as “Old Sad and Various”

.

please do look into Cordwainer Smith dear reader/if you are at all curious

and if you find “No, No, Not Rogov!” in your investigations/reflect on how now there is a thing called “Neuralink”

and marvel at the good doctor’s prescience