bald empire founded on this artifact

for Yibawean use only

In the basement reliquary there reposes, mouldering as such things do in this day of electronic keyboards, the old Remington manual typewriter. This was not just an ordinary typewrwiter to be brought out daily from a ho-hum case. This was a custom-paint job, machine and case. The Dell computer keyboard in front of me now is dead-grey.

I thought of having the Remington bronzed, but the dipping process would have obliterated the paint job.

DRAW

Faint wears the ribbon traversing twixt the spools
Left and right many times over pulled to the limits
Tripping the gear for a reverse

And Quaint
Is thought the unplugged-in machine
And the users thereof

Saints of the written word
Mayn’t they also write upon their walls
By firelight using pieces of charcoal?

Or paint their pictures
With former-day devices labeled
Remington, Olivetta, or Underwood?

Taint them not
You disciples of Gateway and Dell
T’aint right in a world dangerously uninclusive

Janed or Dicked be ye?
Byte-bitten?
Embrace, e’r the waning inks go dry

Haint it true
Something dark is what makes the mark?
So gather ye multi-mediad smudges whilst ye may

[Zep 2-12-2002]
…………………………………………………

It's not the machine, charcoal or computer

it's what you do with it