Temperamental Machine

The poet muses about the sugar-coated slavery engendered by a temperamental machine, the computer.

The slower puncture beats out the crushing drive,

the punctual go-getter burning with intent,

plugged in, going wrong, but strong, what will happen

nothing to do with honesty, crash and burn at will.

This warped chemistry needing licence to function,

disembodied apps clog the system at will,

prepare to configure, please don’t switch me off,

comedy through readiness, all done before.

One week since you promised me the world,

access to a higher market, growing incessantly,

God alone knowing where the glitches come in,

running dry through the printer, fed and watered.

Circularing like a jammed record, a probable incarnation

vinyl and silicon competing for preferment, again,

the A to B zealots user friendly throughout,

who tried to better themselves through practice?

Built in best before dates, obsolete in a spell,

hurdling through fashion a common trait,

future generations calling on the Plastic Age,

encased in shrines of further escalations.

Forgiving all who truly repent, slavish attendance,

walking into doors after a hard night's day

reserved for visitors, sugar-coated slavery

the better to be seen with, exploding inevitable.

Patricia Walsh born in the parish of Mourneabbey, in north Co Cork,and educated at University College Cork, graduated with an MA in Archaeology in 2000. Her poetry has been published in Stony Thursday; Southword; New Wasteland Magazine; Quail Bell Magazine; The Poetry Collective; Quiver Review, among others. She has authored a chapbook, 'Continuity Errors' (2010), and a novel, 'The Quest for Lost Éire' (2014). She was the featured poet in the inaugural edition of Fishbowl Magazine, and published a further novel, 'The Days of Ford Cortina', in 2021.