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Overloading the Machine

Tender

A farce, which was this hemophiliac doorbell
stopped in its tracks, that is their blessed glistening
meanness, like tumblers to a toddler

a ritual was something else
nothing, no circumlocution, no zeronones
a one pain above or a waiting design

its a range, it introduced the l to the l
and made its point, systematically
within a chart there is a folder

inside all this and unusual
an echo the ear can't wrap, won't
cling, not unavailable in not selling

not absent and not adorned
the three-legged stool, not unheard
but ill-advised, and often.

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.