Who can deny that we live in an age of gizmotic marvels? You sir? (Security, table three,  guy in the chicken suit). The cell phone, the computer, the internet, the cloud, the penile implant, the driverless car, the waterless state, the humorless situation comedy, the clueless dick, that woman’s voice coming out of your phone, telling you how to find a lawyer to sue your brainless urologist for mistakenly installing a penile eggplant—the list of impressive, life changing hardware goes on and on.

But there are modern gizmo fails, or at least one that I‘m aware of. With the arrival of spring, and the miraculous appearance of head-phoned lawn crews everywhere, I am more aware than ever of this failure. Especially in mid afternoon at siesta time.

Yesterday, jolted from dreamy bliss by the sound of a North Korean missile exploding in the neighbor’s back yard, I was so aware of this damnable doodadery, that I resorted to something I swore to my support group that I would never use again.

Yes, that’s right. Poetry. Look, nobody’s perfect.

The Dinosaurs Died For Our Sins

Canto I

T. Rex dies,
time goes by
mountains move, ice retreats
we dig a hole and
black gold pools at our feet.
We wash it, dry it,
towel it down,
find out it makes the world go round.
We refine it, redesign it,
pour it in tanks.
It powers our cars, our boats,
even our banks
and one odd machine
that sucks gasoline
both loud and unheard of,
it beggars belief:
a contraption invented
for moving a leaf

Canto II

Wearing no shirt,
but hideous shorts,
his man-breasts ajoggle,
he cavorts without shame
with a gizmo devised
for the sluggish and slow:
a portable cyclone,
the Mom of all blow.

Canto II.V

With one savage tug
he rips it to life
with a noise
I SAID A NOISE
THAT CUTS LIKE A KNIFE.
He walks down his driveway
pushing a leaf
just one little leaf
into the byway,
beneath a blue skyway.
Take that
you dead little turd
and all ye nap takers
whose peace I’ve disturbed.
Pretty in life, pity in death
the leaf had it coming,
I’ll waste no more breath.
Just stick to your raking,
your fat belly aching
your pathetic back-breaking
and stay out of my yard
lest ye be blewn
into June
by a mighty blowhard

I Canto hear myself think anymore.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.