battered screws stripped bare by
a hundred thousand terrible twists
from an unsteady, inexperienced,
or overly excited hand
nearly rattling out of their proper positions,
hanging rather loosely
to the last threads of their holes.
fan them as they dangle,
fandangle!
but a blue gust from beneath
the anonymous and unidentifiable bursts
the shriveled scraps of low-grade steel
from their brittle perches
and
then one,
two,
threefourfivesixseventyeightmillion
clatterings invade all audibility,
heightening --- accentuating --- underscoring
each miniscule soundwave
                                                until there is not much more than
white noise, crack-
ling like a ruddy transitor radio
i probably never had
but only equate it to for lack of
another more proper, perhaps more appropriate,
even more...profound (?) word, or, whatever;
hardware indignationum!
what abuses we dish these inanimates created by us for us!, and, yes,
i follow all syncretic trends to
their phenomenal (and fusional)
morphological ends. if i didn't, how could
i know the neutered from the neuterer?
attend to the screws;
the debased, bemused, once-bedazzled little bits strewn on the floor and
frazzled. go on,
get 'em up, up
off the ground.