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Overloading the Machine
The New Economy
A 50-foot tall Marine Corps drill instructor
is hovering over America's cities
A plump pink Russian emerges from a bath
and sews himself some new clothing
Our bodies, receptors for art
or a state-of-the-art recycling facility
"You are blocking traffic," the trooper told him
"We are traffic," he replied
I'm wearing a mail shirt because
I'm delivering a message today
People sleeping with soggy, shredded newspapers,
fellow envelopes:
we are enclosed
and nearly
licked.
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.
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