poetry assignment 10
This will be my final poem for this workshop. The assignment: Every week, you have been recording thoughts in your journal that include details of an object, person, or event. Use one of those entries as inspiration for your final poem. Include the words "nickel" and "parchment."
“personal writing machine”
keys of glass and nickel
are mute in their bakelite case
as I bang out these words
with unnecessary roughness
on a silicone-padded keyboard
a time capsule, closing its eyes
to the mockery of my industrial style,
that weakly mimics its once-regal air
of no-nonsense functionalism
and feigned aesthetic apathy.
with my bellows-impoverished Nikon -
lacking even a drape or odd dials
with inscrutable symbols - I stole images
of this vintage find, and dressed them,
guiltily, in phony sepia tone.
I wonder, when this machine was all the rage
and rows of well-manicured secretaries
attended them with breezy competence,
was it in vogue to mock pretentiously,
in art and architecture, ink and quill?
Did once the scraping scratch
of feather upon parchment scroll
ring cliché and all the while inflame
the same nostalgic thrill and retrospective awe
as the dulcet click and clack of metal type?
“personal writing machine”
keys of glass and nickel
are mute in their bakelite case
as I bang out these words
with unnecessary roughness
on a silicone-padded keyboard
a time capsule, closing its eyes
to the mockery of my industrial style,
that weakly mimics its once-regal air
of no-nonsense functionalism
and feigned aesthetic apathy.
with my bellows-impoverished Nikon -
lacking even a drape or odd dials
with inscrutable symbols - I stole images
of this vintage find, and dressed them,
guiltily, in phony sepia tone.
I wonder, when this machine was all the rage
and rows of well-manicured secretaries
attended them with breezy competence,
was it in vogue to mock pretentiously,
in art and architecture, ink and quill?
Did once the scraping scratch
of feather upon parchment scroll
ring cliché and all the while inflame
the same nostalgic thrill and retrospective awe
as the dulcet click and clack of metal type?