Poem For Machine Night
By Jehangir Saleh
Written: November 9, 2005

Midnight
In the moments before it rains
Listening to electronic music made by humans through machines
While the surrounding metropolis breathes in car exhaust
vehicles compete for the off ramp
Couples live their lives through the television set
While we sit in your car
Fogging up the windows with the exhaust
From our lungs
Talking about who is more fucked up
And finally
Having some answers

At night
Your car
Is a womb
With wheels
Built by tired men
In a heavily industrialized factory
Whose arms are everyday becoming

I can’t see outside
It’s very dark
I hear the mechanized sound of our mental processes
That sounds like breathing

You are and ocean
You said to me

So are you

While in India away from the machines
A little girl, defying her mother who is poor and thirsty, adds water to the ocean
With her bucket and pale, stolen, she sits on the beach and pours water into the endless body of wetness
Something she cannot imagine or really understand
Except that it is bigger than she is
And taking what little she has, even though it is all she has, adding to the ocean will make her bigger, like the ocean, apart of something greater than what she could ever be.
After waiting such longtime
Finally
There was silence
Sitting between us
Watching the window of the car fog over
Together
In this moment
Yet still experiencing it independently

I know it doesn’t make any sense right now
But together with you
I was free

Finally
A tale worthy of that word

Goodnight