From my senior year in college. This poem was a conscious attempt to write somewhat in the style of Miroslav Holub.
An oscilloscope,
the finest money could buy.
Electrons,
flung mercilessly against its great,
round, green, glass face
presenting the illusion of motion.
Doctors,
the finest money could buy
standing united, circled about the table.
Pierced through like beads, sewn together
by their common goal
the task at hand.
The air
bleeding from the fact of steel
cold and precise,
irresistable,
present.
But entropy increases, and tensions must resolve.
Doctors,
the finest money could buy,
pause, staring.
The fact of white
and red.
Electrons
race to their deaths,
presenting the illusion of stillness.
Doctors
shedding their skins of rubber and cotton
slowly becoming men again.
Somewhere a technician throws a switch.
The oscilloscope,
strangled,
presents the illusion of death.
And at that instant every light in the city
burns infinitesimally brighter.
March 10, 1971
revised April 11, 1973