wjsullivan.net

Overloading the Machine

Here, the Sky

Mars will gamble or will not be
Mars rather than cinder rather

that it might be
cinder to perpetuate size of it

I perpetuate Mars
it may not be it is

size cupped here I can
size cinder very much my Mars

to have been cupped as size
to fell it as it is and

size I cupped
size can if burden
(which is burden) is

burden size can burden me
one knows a size for Mars (if Mars
is Mars)

one is one knows
one knows this gamble:

Mars Mars gamble for Mars

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

-- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.