Writing Great Code

It’s exquisite art as long
As it takes cultivated
Castes of artisans to make,

Which is, although this seems strange,
For as long as it’s routine
Drudgery, engineering.

It stops needing priestly scribes,
Enrobed career technicians
Of the sacred, their bullae

That rattle inscrutably
With the tokens of power,
About the same time, oddly,

It moves past mere accounting,
As narrations decorate—
Not just, this is this or that,

Or, you will do this or that,
But I, so-and-so, did this.
Once great code’s being written

In something like third-person,
The whole thing’s off and running
In opposite directions,

This-away, literature,
Poetry, propaganda,
That-away, rude mechanics,

Libraries, printing presses,
Replication by machine.
There’s no priesthood of typists,

And storytellers are back
In the game, shilling, hoping
For sponsorship, patronage,

Steady gigs writing columns
Of copy, always dreaming
Of making a good living

On the backs of the great code
Production machinery,
Churning content for the hordes,

While the real lords are neither
Writers, machines, nor users,
Only owners of the codes.