Charles and The Ubiquitous Industrial Machine Explosion
He is a pinball drifting down the streets.
Now up ahead a music snarls,
not wolflike, but bipedal,
a dragon with an elephantine nose
emitting jets of air as hot
as steam, its wind as savage
as a great whirlwind blowing in to ravage
the township with its din and dust.
It terrorizes Charles
and makes him head the other way. He goes
past black-eyed Susan, fleabane, nettle.
He goes where daydream takes him —
until another raucous gadget makes him
change course. He has no wanderlust.
He’ll leave his loft but not
embark on voyages beyond these shores,
as if they held him with a chain
of vines. None hold the shears,
nor will protect him. He has but two fears:
eternal rest and all the scores
of beasts which, in every lane
and avenue, assault him with their din.
He’s confident they will not win
as long as he retreats.
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