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Overloading the Machine
Practice, in Ink
Today a tree fell from my hand,
on count of six:exhale, the rough
taste of newsprint licked in wisps
with a sable-tongued spine.
Empty, insurgent calm swelled tall
enough to pause the tremors, until
branches leaked, and a trunk stood
on its own.
The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first
time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent
with Basil.
-- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
This page was last modified on 2011 December 20. "Practice, in Ink" by John Sullivan is Copyright ©2003 - 2011, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.