I have a 7 page paper due tomorrow that I have to start, but I was filled with this and had to pour it out. Also, my blog edits out the formatting I made on the poem, so if you would like to see it with formatting email me.
—
What is a machine?
A device made of cold metal
Just whirring and humming and clicking the hours and days away
maybe.
Built to complete a task set out for it tirelessly, faultlessly
Unless it is broken.
We are all machines, tape players in fact
In a 1992 Buick.
We were made to play beautiful music from a certain little cassette; one that is a little bit old
perhaps the film has some smudges and scratches in places
but still, it has that ONE song on it the most important song the song that changes people and yet,
tape players don’t all work the same do they?
—
Some may play the cassette, it sounds ok I guess, but it never gets to the best part!
When the tape gets to a certain smudge it stops, and has to restart.
Many, when the tape is put in, they don’t even believe it is there and then,
With a gurgle and a chink, spit it back out again.
Some of us may gladly take the tape, but freeze
Hide it inside, don’t want to play, just go away please.
A few snatch the tape away, now its smashed, ruined, cut, scarred,
The beautiful cadences forever marred.
There are tape players that want to play the music, but our tired little cogs can’t cope at all
The music comes out low, slow, can’t make a difference at this crawl
There are even those (don’t act surprised) who play the cassette in a blurry flurry,
the meaning is lost, they’re in such a hurry.
Quite a bit different, but equally bad, the volume knob could be broken and so loud the sound,
so vigorously is it played, it needs to be turned way down.
I feel bad for the one, poor machine when the tape is shoved in to hard, even backwards! (Who would dare?)
Naturally that poor guy is damaged, sometimes beyond repair.
Don’t let all this get you down though, cause there is one more kind!
One in a million, a true find
Well oiled and new, this cassette tape machine plays the music as it was meant to be heard. The sound of it is not fast and flighty, it doesn’t stop or skip, and the volume is set to just the right level. This device is fulfilling its purpose. And if
- a machine can have feelings -
I think that this one is the happiest cassete tape player of them all.
What kind of machine are you?
—
By the way, if what I say doesn’t make sense to you,
I have the tape.
Care to give a listen?
