Saturday, October 5, 2013

"The Cog Slipped": A Steampunk Poem


They walked on slowly through the silver-gray fog.
He thought for certain that she’d slipped a cog.
How could she refuse him, so dashing, so rich?!
“There must be,” he thought, “some sort of a glitch.”
"A rusted amygdala, a misfiring synapse,
Or a dented or shattered cerebrum, perhaps."

The spring in his steel jaw was angrily twitching,
The vein in his forehead pulsed under its stitching.
His sight-orbs stared forward, whirling quite wildly.
She studied him carefully, and then she spoke, mildly:
“I don’t say this to grieve you, but you must understand–"
(At this, she touched his mechanical hand.)
“You are an arrogant being, and overly bold,
You’d stifle me with your unyielding hold.”

“I am an artist, and therefore, must have my own voice.”
“So, you see,” she continued, “you've left me no choice.”
And then, he began to simmer and sputter,
Oil oozed from his ears, and his sight-orbs did flutter.
He reeled on his axis, and his visage grew pale,
Sparks flew from his chest, and then his arms flailed.
Sinking faster and faster, his iron knees hit the ground.
There was hissing and whirring, and then, a deafening sound.
In a burst it was over, and nothing of him was found...
Except a smoldering, pitiful, dumb ashen mound.

No comments: