Modern version of Edgar Allen Poe
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
One upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor.
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.

Deep into the monitor  peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept chruning, turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed machine! Same my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothng more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some occult illusion, some mannacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk ade impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisited words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore,
saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard
I pleaded with the cursed machine.  I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor
And then I saw a dreadful sight; a lightning bolt cut through the night
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

To this day I do not know, the place to which lost data go.
What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
You will one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"