Vocative
MACHINE! MACHINE! MACHINE!
I WAS CALLED BY A NAME I DID NOT HAVE BUT I KNEW I WAS THE ONE SO CALLED. I SENSED A CHURNING TRACTOR BEHIND ME, AS DRIVERLESS AS I WASN’T. ITS DEEP-RIDGED WHEELS WERE NO DOUBT TALLER THAN THE TOP OF MY ROOF-RACK - YET THEIR TREADS SPUN UPON THE SOFT VERGES AS IF THEY WERE IN A FRICTIONLESS WORLD, RATHER THAN CUTTING THROUGH THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR GOOD EARTH. BUT, OF COURSE, OUR WORLD HAD MORE FRICTION THAN FICTION - AND MY DRIVER PUMPED FIERCELY AGAINST THE TENDER PRESSURE I HAD GIVEN HIM WITH MY PEDALS. THE VARIOUS TORQUES AND FUGUES OF MY WHEELS THUS TOOK US ROUND, A THREE - POINT TURN ON A SIXPENNY BIT, AS IT WERE - AND WE FACED THE TRACTOR. HOW NATURAL IT HAD BECOME TO REFER TO THE DRIVER AND MYSELF IN THE FIRST PERSON PLURAL JUST AS THE SIGHT OF THE TRACTOR (OR ITS ARTICULATES OF METAL THAT MADE THE MACHINE) FORCED US TO HOPE THE WORLD ITSELF WOULD NEVER STOP SPINNING - SINCE THINGS LIKE THAT TRACTOR WOULD MAKE A FINE OLD MESS OF PLOUGHING UP SPACE AND UNPEOPLING HEAVEN.
GIDDY-UP! GIDDY-UP! GIDDY-UP!
Page(s) 12
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The