The Old Man and the World

The Old Man and the World

Out on the lonely flat land where the horizon is fences and power lines,

surrounded by untended fields and a vast junkyard,

an old man built the machine

from old parts scavenged at night.

Slogging through the automobile cemetery with a cutting torch and halogen lamp.

The sound of his clamor echoed for miles.

Out here in the wasteland you can sit on your porch and watch the rain fall miles away like an old movie.

Storms move on the horizon but never arrive.

Or you can pick apart old automobiles and combines with a wrench and torch.

Distant thunder by day, and metallic thunder by night.

He was a grave robber, digging for pieces to build his masterpiece.

Dr. Frankenstein recycling pieces of the dead.

The cool night moon his comrade,

the empty stars behind the clouds like absent minded ghosts.

His heart always raced in the fields with the dead machines.

The light soaked up by their dust dull skeletons.

The solitary night was necessary in order to see the promise in the remains.

In the hot light of the sun they looked dead and absolute.

With the focused beam of the flashlight the second life of the metal was revealed,

Like a deep sea treasure hunter in the land of underwater midnight.

He wanders through the dense black battlefield the light sweeping quickly from corpse to corpse.

After removing a piece of metal from the carcass,

He would stand in silence, fearing any scrape or bump,

His eyes darting under the heavy wrinkled lids,

Breath quick and supernatural in the blue light of his torch,

Crystal beads collecting on his grey beard.

“Sorry lonely old father,” with a gloved hand on the metal.

He spoke with confidence but the whisper betrayed his fear.

Night after night he collected one piece,

and night after night he whispered the same mantra in the dark.

“Old father.”

The machine started as a thin pile of ribs on the barn floor.

Slowly as each piece was found one night at a time, one piece at a time,

A giant orb began to appear.

Some nights he stayed away from the field just to work on the wooden walkway around the sphere.

The barn flickered with the torch and the welder many nights like the television set in your neighbor’s house.

The crackle of the welder swallowed up in the night.

As he finished cutting a hood or welding a rusted frame he would whisper to his machine,

“Sorry lonely old father.” with a dirty hand on the metal.

The sphere looked like the frame of a giant old industrial planet,

Or a great dinosaur beetle skeleton all curled into itself.

Towering over the man as he scampered around and through the globe,

Bring it back to a new life, like a rust red manufactured phoenix.

Slowly the skeleton filled in with levers, seat, engine, and pedals.

“You are beautiful, old father,” with a tired hand on the metal.

Slowly the shell of the planet was placed piece by night,

Fully enclosing the skeleton and captain’s chair within.

Until finally, one speckled night the man came down the scaffolding and stood in his wide pants before the machine.

It was done.

The old man took a cigarette out and lit it.

The smoke collected in the hood of his welder’s cap.

“Old father,” the man laughed.

He put out the cigarette and slept there with the dust and the smell of oil on the hard barn floor.

He slept next to the great shadow of the corroded metal sphere he built in his barn.

With the morning sun the old man rose and dropped his welding cap to the floor with a hollow clap.

Into the belly of the machine he crawled.

Into the belly he locked himself,

Dark and dusty, creaks and drips.

He climbs up the innards of the machine, up into the chair at the center.

The sunlight sneaks through needle cracks all around him.

Strap the heavy boots into the petals,

Seatbelt across the waist and both shoulders like an old astronaut.

The dark belly smells like iron and oil.

His hands are black with the blood of this new machine.

Sooty fingers strike a match and it erupts like a flare in the vault.

Light dancing with all the shadows along the bulkheads.

The flame whispers into the tip of his cigarette creating a small ember in the dark.

It pulses with his breath.

The goggles come down over his eyes,

Hands grip handles and pull levers.

The machine trembles into life.

The sunlight pinholes blink out and he is plunged into black barking darkness.

“Trust me old father,” with a strong hand on the metal.

A great yellow grin under the grey bristles of his mustache.

Inside the world is thunder and scraping of old joints.

The old man moves pedals and levers, oil drips onto arms, pants, and face.

With a laugh that can barely be heard over the roar of the machine,

The old man takes control.