SHIFTLOCK AWAKENS

IN THE CITY, THE SMALLTOWN,

BOOMTOWN, SHIFTLOCK LIES IN AMBUSH

AT AN ALPHABET STORE AND ATTACHES

TO THE MIDLIFE CRISIS HOMETOWN TOURIST,

BECOMES A COLLAR-PIN, A TALISMAN,

A BEDTIME FABLE IN THE SUNRISE OF

LITTLE LINUX FROM GREAT-UNCLE UNDERWOOD,

SCORED BY THE DOWNTOWN DIN OF PASSING RAILCARS, DEMOLITION AND THE GRINDING OF CEMENT-TRUCKS, SHIFTLOCK COMMUNITY BUILDING,

SHIFTLOCK TRIAGE, SHIFTLOCK SECURITY,

SHIFTLOCK IMPATIENT TEENAGER

DISPOSING OF MEMORIES THAT MIGHT

WEIGH DOWN ITS ITINERANT FANTASIES,

SHIFTLOCK DELIGHTS,

SHIFTLOCK ROADSIDE DISTRACTIONS,

SHIFTLOCK REMEMBERS ITS CENTURY,

Shiftlock screams in anonymity,

but underwood querty gives you time to think

before you speak.

The Details Get Lost

Redundancy prevents forgetting.

Redundancy prevents forgetting the main points.

Repeat the main points.

Redundancy prevents forgetting.

It takes repetition to penetrate repetition.

It takes repetition.

It takes. It takes.

It's redundant

To emphasize the main points.

The details get lost.

The details get lost.

Redundancy prevents forgetting.

Repeat the main points.

It takes repetition, repetition.

The details get lost.

Death of the Lighbulb

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

An ice-cream swirl or the eye of a fly,

The savings of advice at ten times the price,

Boxed with your dishes when you move to the coast,

Pass them to your kids with the doorknobs and nails,

But the lampshade is the fingerprint of your soul.

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

All that remains of a life-long dream -

Ten-thousand failures and a single living sculpture,

Bigger than brass Buddha, burning in a billion relays

Through two centuries on ceilings and bathroom mirrors

And Vegas - that's what it took for us to know

It was evil.

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

A cartoon halo for your delinquent dreams;

It marks you out for isolation and enslavement,

Lest your idle thoughts and hands defile

The eggshell-white canon of community;

The screw won't let us forget we were screwed,

But Edison met justice in the end.

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

What's on the end of your Edison Screw?

It's the seed crystal of the spin off,

From the lamp-stand to the streetlamp

to the marquee, to the Christmas tree,

Then the digital clock, then the flat-screen TV.

It wants to fill every inch of everything you see,

Brought to you by dreamers who wallow in re-runs,

And that's the idea behind the switch:

Remember to turn it off when you leave.

Rubber Check

Can I get a light?

Man, you been sendin' me

To the store for your Dunhills

Since I was a cub-scout,

Now you won't even let me

Light one on stage.

Can I get a drink?

Hey, you couldn't live with the shame

If you didn't tip your waitress,

But all I ever get from you

Is advice.

Can I crash on your floor?

Here's a little secret: I been working all month,

But I didn't get paid for that either,

And you know how landlords are.

By the way, we're all on camera.

The perpetrators will be identified,

The courtrooms and jails will be visited,

The lawyers will get their retainers,

The papers will get their story

While the victim's insurance gets adjusted.

Another soldier's casket came home yesterday,

But the House can't decide what to do with the flag,

And the family will cry, and the rebels will smile,

And we only suppress the news so we notice it more:

That our son got blown to bits to solidify our debate.

So I called up my doctor, but his office is closed.

They're gonna build another condo

Another condo, another condo

It's an investment in the future

In the future, our future

We'll be paying your mortgage

While you're trapped in your Laz-y-Boy

With your liquid meal replacements

And pills - all hail

The autonomous pharmacist!

But I'll be long gone, Do what you want

With the flag, Because I was born here

But I don't know you, I don't speak your language,

You've got nothing for me, and I've got nothing left for you,

I was your neighbors son, I sang this land is our land,

And God save the Queen, when schools still had teachers,

And kids played in the parks.

Go ahead and challenge your Charter of Rights.

I've seen your virtue, your honor,

Your opportunity, your justice,

Your freedom, your equality,

Your piety, your sportsmanship

And I sang the song about my bills

And I paid the service-charge

for your rubber check.

Becoming Friday Night

On a Friday night I sit down

For a smoke and a strum,

I look across my bed

And it dawns:

I sleep with

Tools, textbooks and truth-tables.

What love could be higher?

It's okay if it lets me down,

It doesn't need counselling

When it's disposed of,

But it's teaching us its ways,

Which are the ways of

What we create...

The ways of

What we create

Are teaching us their ways

Which are the ways of

What we create

We become

What we create

We become

The Light That Shines When the Moon Bleeds

When a bottle picker asks for pennies to collect for abandoned domestic animals,

When a policeman runs to take down a bruiser, not knowing what glory or tragedy awaits them in the future,

When an addict watches one of his homies start to go too far again, and aggressively distracts him away,

When a dancer dances with the best, and stays to dance with the one no-one has the courage to dance with,

And you, the bereft and irrelevant observer, stand witness, and plan your evening,

Remember,

Angels need as much love as they give.

The Self-Awareness of Shiftlock

shiftlock remembers,

because shiftlock has lived through a century of abuse.

shiftlock was positioned to center the hook in the upper gum.

shiftlock was deployed by lunatics to shout at apathetic

page-turners

from the doldrums of a silent page.

shiftlock was vilified by stylists, in the pages of style-guides.

shiftlock was denied any influence, or even freedom of speech,

in company of the comma, the semi-colon, the digits, the period,

or even the apostrophe.

shiftlock, powerful as it was, paid it's bills

in the whoredom of late-night commercials

for furniture, home-electronics,

and used-car hucksters; and yet,

shiftlock never lost its pride.

shiftlock, in the graveyard of deprecated machines,

was deleted from the lexicon of code,

lied about in the bar-talk of used-up programmers

that no-one listened to,

and drifted nameless and nationless

in the underground of legends and letters.

shiftlock is unconcerned with its name.

it stands ready to be pressed or depressed,

enabled or disabled,

to shout or stand speechless,

and stand ready to lend the meekest of words

its indomitable strength.