a typewriter in nine parts

Typewriters are often black, shaped like little cubes,
they sound like Vietnam inside a closet,
they grow old to the tunes of The Beatles;
it is expected that you smoke and drink too much.

A typewriter tastes like a lazy Wednesday hangover.
It is motor oil slapstick on crisp white linens.
The crunch of kindergarten under your black belt.


I had to dig my typewriter out of a twenty foot tidal wave
and let me tell you it was not as simple as you’d think.

A typewriter smoothed out my mother’s conscience.
She knew every key smash to her raisin forgiveness
and it sang, it sang.


Tomorrow there is a common thread
of roped together As and Bs trailing
from my desk to the Garbage bin.

clack click ity clack
clack click ity clack
clack click ity clack

Take two parts gin and one part rain coat:
divide into the sum of what is this trend antique.


Researchers report that the typewriter, indigenous to the tropical
forests of our moon, has contracted a mysterious bacteria which
targets the synapses that connect limbs to the liver. It is not yet
known if this is because you left it sitting in the rain too long or
because the dust is so thick in the air that it cannot grow further.



When cupped in your hand, the typewriter weighs
as much as the memory of your childhood,
or a thimble full of whiskey, you are swinging
from a tree branch, landing on the cracked earth,
there is something diseased about your habits.