blips back and forth
they cross my screen
"..now typing" it says
beside the smiley face--
ping-pong drivel
and reckonless froth
from goodness knows who.

The young now roam free on
an unspoken-for battlefield.

But, now, we remember
it once was said,
"scratch star wars..
its salt for the cold war wounds
of Dr. Strangelove and the mad generals."

Tell them there,
my young friend with
faceless acquaintances
in that far off place,
that I am glad for that guy
who argued against that machine
with the almost-fatal error,
which said that my country
had finally lost its wits
and sent a nuke hurtling to Russia.

It was the day we almost died,
and this is a hug for Stanislav.