August 2000
Letter 22 - (After W.C. Williams)

This 3:15
           barely rolled.
Dragged.
        Skidded
to a start.

This 3:15 screamed
through tinnitus
& a pulsing head            ache.

At only 3:09
alarm sounds, the
bell ((electronic, battery-
powered, made in China))
                                    tolls.

The doctor knows the poem
may be an essential detail
picked out for memory.

May be something set aside
for further study. May
be a sorta shorthand
                 of emotional significances
                                        for later reference.

But the good doctor, blinded
by his allopathic ways
      mistakes the poem's
knowing throb                
          sentient throb
for the nightmare of
                  the MACHINE.

Deus ex machina
                       INDEED!

A machine, what does not
live or bleed. Is
evil this mechanical.

Is Newton's sleep
undisturbed.
No poetry of distinction
               without formal invention.

Yet the machine          
                                 repulsive.
The machine        
                   Sum
of its parts.

The machine                       
                  unyielding
unfeeling.                  

The machine                             
darts
to the next logical                   
                  conclusion                    
linear.                       

The machine         
                         chronicle
of sub           
                version, of
domination.

The machine       
                      from reaper
to rapist.         
                       ((Even the
train horns steal peace
of the night.))

The machine              
                    reminder
of who culls the rules.

The machine            
                    Stranger
than the organic throb
yet life's grotesque
                         next to it.

The machine corrupts
                             unbending.
((We can, at least, boot
a computer.))

The machine           
                 Doctor
is the axis we continue
to war against
                           even
as we strive to mumble
our deficiencies.

Even as we rumble
our pitiable
                        & sacred
YAWP                   
what may take
generations to find
        its kin.

These poems no             
            machines sir
nor are we.                

These poems do not reconcile.
They don't have a prayer
and what, then
is the use
?
of sentience.

A death sentence.
A life, in poems
on skid road
death row
of
is it another
solar ((soular))
illusion
?

Give to me life
& its pitiable
YAWP! That
eruption, that
lusterless bluster
            more satisfying
than one dank
   machine.
Give to me the old
ladies cliché'd nature
poems, more

life in there
            seeking form
than the greatest
((unfeeling))
pernicious   pedantic   machine.

We see it whir
                     Doctor
see it breakdown, spin
implode, but no
                             DANCE.

No poetry in ITS
motion in
                            sufferable.

No conscious thought
no throb
            this
machine.        
               Is
capable of nothing
more than we
can do
OURSELVES
this evil                            
time-saving?
                         HA!

Perhaps my strength
               is the deadly weapon
                              what is destroying me,
                        perhaps.

But the intricate
                       Illusion
the elaborate ruse
                     remains.

peN#986
3:40A - 8.22.00