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Overloading the Machine
Tender
A farce, which was this hemophiliac doorbell
stopped in its tracks, that is their blessed glistening
meanness, like tumblers to a toddler
a ritual was something else
nothing, no circumlocution, no zeronones
a one pain above or a waiting design
its a range, it introduced the l to the l
and made its point, systematically
within a chart there is a folder
inside all this and unusual
an echo the ear can't wrap, won't
cling, not unavailable in not selling
not absent and not adorned
the three-legged stool, not unheard
but ill-advised, and often.
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and
doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone
of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
-- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"
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