For the Love of Ghost and Machine

Dedicated to Nancy Jo, Saundra, Guillermina, Ernie, Jim, Sharon, and Tom This tired and broken mechanism, Seized up and frozen, Almost. Rustiness of texture, surface, and structure. Frayed and a bit tattered, Yet not yet, Shredded. Heaps of cracked, Not shattered, Fragments of pottery, Not dust, Approaching stasis. Dragging, lifting, and heaving tools. Buckets of sloshing mucilage. Hammers and stripped screws. Bent nails and twisted rivets. Rolls and rolls and rolls of duct tape. Wrenches and cross-threaded bolts, Dragged, lifted, and heaved by tools, Themselves in serious need of repair. Strings, wires, rope, and silk thread bind, Their dreams of inflated influence. Crumbling and held barely aloft, By the distracted effort of a dozen tinkerers. Quivering and cast mostly adrift, And jerking in the clang of their earnest shift work. Grinding and still nearly alive, Being breathed. Gasping and grasping, With fingerless hands. Strengthen yourselves as you listen, To the itch and scream, Of their dreamless sleep. To their waiting and their reaching. To the friction of their resistance to release. Their script forgotten. Absent prompting from the voice of mystery. Deus et Machina. They are lovers and tense friends. They are night and day. This machine is now anxious and frantic and desperate, Addicted to time and loves with a lusty grip. This anima is now circumspect and still and patient, Integrated with space and loves endlessly with delicate agape. This world, this body, this concrete dream, So dear and transient. This time, this blink, this arc of presence, So elegant and beautiful. This form, this family, this one true home, So spacious and comfortable. This chain of experience, this string of pearls and stone, this strobic show, So dazzling and entertaining and complete.