Robin Bell
It beat the air feebly
with its ragged arms
and creaked out muffled
curses.
Unfair, it said
unfair that I am old,
unfair that I am useless,
unfair, it beat the air
feebly with its ragged
curses.
Even the sky,
it said, is electric,
and unfair to be so
spruce and up to date,
electric like everything
else and not like me,
useless, old with unfair
curses.
I can hear
the cables humming
the turbines’ muffled
drumming and the unfair
electric sky, it said,
and the creaking of
the old wind’s feeble
curses.
The unfair
mills of electric
cities, it said,
and I am left to
tilt at ragged Don
Quixotes in my useless
imagination and beat
feebly at a thousand
Rosinantes’ whinnied
curses.