Machine

Packs nothings, waits on humans, readies to scream

Fright box unlocked, its turn to instigate.

Instructions give no warning of its too-late.

Interruption to meditation is the machine.

Its starts jars alive itself death noise,

Valleys tense, roads jaded, everywhere surplus,

Indifferent to air or its ultimate purpose:

Pumped-up claimant, hiding how it destroys.

Constant anomaly till its job ends shut

Shears and eats distilled joy with this-but,

Wheels even, meters and other quaint graphics.

The clock passes pressed hours where it manics

Till its nothing-left, dried-out, a broken cup.

Fire starts its own fire from down, up.

Image: detail of a fluorescent work by Keith Haring at the current Basquiat/Haring show at the National Gallery of Victoria