When Machines Drink

 

 

            When machines drink

            They tell me the true stories

            Loose lips

            My computer is a movie-of-the-week abuse tale

            The keyboard is said to have the death camp mark yet

            And my guitar has track marks that would make junkies scream

 

            Occasionally, they will fight

            As when my compressor

            Puffed out its chest

            And blew out the circuit breaker

            Or when the television revealed its liberal tendencies

            To my conservative remote control

            Which buried its head in the couch

 

            The hammer and my roofing implements

            Like to commit suicide for attention

            It’s never real

            They’re always waiting at the bottom to be oiled

            But I have to cart my ass down the ladder anyway

 

            The computer is jealous

            It steps between me and anyone who would come near me

            And says

            Stay off my man

            And slaps drunkenly

            As I try to take it home for the night

 

            And when they throw up

            In shooting electric sparks

            When they stumble

            Taking apart the union carpenter

            When they are banned from the bar

            They sing

            They sing a drunken rasping sound of mechanized gears

            They are more simple than we are

            They have better reasons

            They have better beer

            And like a dog

            They lay down to nothing

            And like a dog

            They howl at the moon

            The roof

            The story

            The fuck am I writing?