The floor is lined with well-oiled machines.
They are gleaming models,
producing perfect products.
They hum, whir, purr.
Smile.
They are lustrous, polished instruments
with safety valves releasing steam,
and automatic shut-offs.
They are controlled and efficient.
But one machine is not like the rest.
A single rusty clunker,
worn out, broken down, wearing thin.
It screeches, bangs, clanks.
Snarls.
Gauges tarnished, valves corroded, sealed stuck,
it is unreliable and dangerous.
It will cough out mangled wares
’til its inevitable collapse.
A Morning Grouch 
I really liked this. Great use of imagery and analogy.
Thanks 🙂
Want to come teach poetry to my classes? Seriously. I’ve never been able to grasp it like this.
What? I don’t believe you. You are amazing at everything.
lovely…
Sometimes that ‘old’ clunky machine is the BEST ONE! I loved this, it reminded me of so many things, the descriptive words reminded me of a factory, the movie “Robots” and lastly, this old LOUD, clunky dot matrix printer we still used at my last job, THIS CENTURY! Everyone made fun of it, it was loud and slow, but it worked like a charm. If you closed the door and left it alone, it performed perfectly every single time! Thanks for bringing that memory back!
Haha that is awesome. I used to love tearing the edges off dot matrix printer paper.
Your imagery is amazing. I suck at poetry – I always sound like a really dumb Dr. Seuss who can’t rhyme as well. Or something.
Dr. Seuss was a genius! So…if you sound at all like him I think you’re doing okay. I usually think my poems are somewhat ridiculous,and always have the “oh-my-god-people-are-going-to-think-this-is-the-worst-thing-ever feelings, but I post them anyway. Trying to get over the fear of everything I do being shit, and just going with it.