The Machine In The Garden by Bayne MacGregor

Under the threatening of rainstorms howled the madness and the joy
In the garden of the Gypsy club, the foolish then employ
Haunted mushroom liquid dreams and the poetry of the loon
Frantic carnal dances for the vampire moon

A Yiddish violinist, a companion to a cat
Danced around a dish for me he’d stolen from a rat
He danced down to the docks at once right to the edge of sea
Threatened to board a ship of fools and all of this for me

I thought there for some silver coin they tossed into a hat
I battled with a songbird for the attentions of the cat
I lost my heart to spanish eyes and all that that entails
I spilled some mud; I drank some blood and tried my hand at flails

Brought to light within the garden of pleasure and of fright
By the ministry of Tesla in the medium of sight
Though sat I happy as can be twixt leather and twixt lace
Was an enigma so absurd to break my succubal embrace

A machine it was I once was sure of tinker make and fame
Artifice, automaton, on man I pinned the blame
Yet ghosts they were and wraiths as well who had no wish to fade
Messiah of cogs springs and gears a robot god they made

It ate a fortune decades old at expenses none would balk
It gave a whirr it gave a click and it began to talk
Words of love and serenity, peace and of fidelity
It even spoke to those with need of fiscal instability

Like all things rare and special, the few would have increase
Uprise the mediocrity to cry cyst and decease
An angry mob of business suits with pitchforks and with flame
Did what they could to break the thing and act about with shame

The damaged mechanism carried off by bats in flight
Into the gentle kindness of the creatures of the night
It does not talk it only rusts yet holds its heads up high
I think it weeps for those who could not bare to watch the sky

And so I lean upon this thing as I drink and sing
When I am not kissing lips and trying not to fling
My meal upon the table on which my words I make
I ponder this clockwork god and wisdom try to take