Friday, November 5, 2010

POEM OF THE DAY BY ELIZABETH GOLD

Wild Turkey


I tell you I saw this once—tangle
of typewriters piled up
on a city street like a pyre

waiting to be lit, levers still
half lifted as if trying to hail
a cab. Oh, they were beautiful,

these discarded messengers
of the machine age, their names,
Olivetti, Royal, Underwood, picked out

in gold, and I almost rescued one,
hefting it from its nest of empty
whiskey bottles—Wild Turkey,

they were, flock decimated
by the light of burning midnight
oil, but ghosts, I think, prefer

the company of ghosts, that’s why
we seldom see them, but we hear them,
sometimes, typing away at that life

sentence, bars rising with the press
of fingertips on the keys, unlocking
the words: send help.


-Elizabeth Gold

1 comment:

  1. a fine finish. love the flow of this. great imagery. i can all but hear the klink of bottles.

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