I’ve received lots of spam, over the years. Most, of late, preemtively taken aside and beaten about the head by increasingly astute (and brutal) email filters. The few that make it through are usually the ones that cleverly disguise themselves as actual email, avoiding key words (i.e., “erection”) and other tip-offs ($, !!!, etc.).

To this end, spammers are getting quite creative. Too creative, it would seem, such that the email is rendered utterly useless, as far as being a marketing or sales tool. Like this one, just received, having survived the gauntlet of filters to present itself to me, in all its poetic simplicity (line breaks, elipses, and [] mine):

From: Marla Fowler
Subject: WN
Date: July 11, 2006 1:01:58 PM PDT

[O] voice, which promised
unheard-of marvelous places
and times,
and Kirill… nearest hill…
a hundred steps from the rocks…

“Got it? Let’s go.”
[The] air was filled with the fresh,
piercing odor of ozone,
and that…
the steam

Okay, I know it was probably just copy-pasted out of an existing text, by some program, but… Alas, a burning question remains: What, dear Marla, did you mean by the subject heading (WN)?

Oh, dear. Now this, from Rod Eastman. Didn’t have to change a thing. Curiouser and curiouser:
From: Rod Eastman
Subject: 00D
Date: July 12, 2006 10:07:33 AM PDT

like an electric shock. “Wait, Kirill. Come out here.”
watched, without a single blink. One by one, each of the eight birds
“You dog, you,” he said and smiled. “Well, let’s go for it. First thing
twisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that he would fly