The appararatus and the all (a poem)

Thursday, November 6, 2025

✦ THE APPARATUS AND THE ALL ✦

a tired hymn for the ones who still get up

The listening—
the loser in me,
in us,
the one we fear to name.

Say a way.
A whisper.
1984.

My mind—
to even think it,
how terrible.

I witnessed an event
that hasn’t occurred,
and it has stayed with me
all these years.

The echo precedes the sound.
The ache invents the wound.
We remember what never was,
and live beneath its proof.

Slovenly kempt.
The paradox walks in,
collar bent,
mind pressed sharp.

Disheveled order—
the art of almost collapsing
but never quite.

Wrinkled symmetry.
Buttoned chaos.
The elegance of forgetting
to care just enough.

The state of the interior—
ailing,
more disheveled
than my molars.

The avatar still operates.
I mean—
it won’t run again,
but it shuffles me
from A to B.

The ole blood machine—
the flex turned brittle,
and I can’t sneeze
without breaking a rib.

A soul with tendrils,
wrapped around a mesh,
and all the motors,
and the gears,
the cog-oriented systems—
and a chronic comorbidity
that won’t let it stand.

The man behind the curtain—
the wizard needs Oz.
The spirit without body—
what can it grant?

But this one,
with the apparatus,
the up and walk straight.

The vacuum of a single mind,
the veracious will,
the claw and tooth
of a single one—

how’d we make it this far?
I’m tired,
and the inquiry
doesn’t rest.

A middle-aged man,
sludging it through his ten-yard hall—
the feet,
the shuffle,
the stutter-step and half limp,
and the occasional,
damn, I almost fell.

So put it together—
this picture and song,
this image of me,
of you,
and the all,
trying to just get along.