The Lamp
Our Medusa “Lamprey”
Is above all reflective
Of its brand, and will provide
A fabled anguilloforme
On demand, when dried
To European norms,
Unless its assembled
Switches are disabled,
When it may assert a brief
And petulant tendency
To overheat, germane
To the ephemeral
Melee of entropy at its base.
Any attempt to ever deflect
The motion of the slings and levers
Would defy at a minimum
Its miraculous state
Of equilibrium
With the counterweights and springs
Of the heated plates,
And so we instruct our new devotees
To follow at all costs
The relevant directives
And back slowly away
From the liquid exhausts,
And allow the sieves
To oxidize before hiring
A fully-authorized technician
To twist the nuts and ties
Into the desired position.
Before abandoning finesse in favor
Of excessive force, it is proposed
To never from unthinking behavior
Exceed the angle of repose.
Torque the tools carefully
Enclosed in the States
Until the coils and plates
Can support any stupidly
Laughable tangles,
Lest the bolts surpass rapidly
The maximum quota of faults
With unpleasant and often
Uncertain results.
And then, dear friend, lie down
And relax, lit by the proud
And almost human renown hidden
In each and every Gewindeschrauben.
April 24th, 2026, Kaiholu
Explanation
I merge the lamprey eel, an Anguilliforme, with the lamp. I also mix up Giuseppe Tomasi, the 11th Prince of Lampedusa and 12th Duke of Palma, who wrote The Leopard, and the snake-haired monster Medusa, a combination of the beautiful and terrifying.
Tomasi wrote the novel, a history of his family, at the end of his life, when he was sixty. It was rejected initially, but immediately after his death was published, became a best-seller, and was recognized as one of the great Italian novels. Giuseppe’s titles died with him.
Many of the more absurd phrases from the poem come from the assembly manual for a few modern lamps we bought. I made them slightly more palatable, because they were incoherent with legalities. I used the Italian version of the manual because, to me, other languages than English provide more portmanteau words, false friends, homonyms: inspiring wormholes in language through which incoherence brings its restorative nonsense and near-miss synonyms into the world.
Assembly manuals are great sources of mistranslated babble, and my constant study, mostly in German, Italian, and French. When I was younger I was frustrated by them, because I took them literally. Along with essential wrenches and miniature screwdrivers often left out of the box, the manuals represent a random linguistic version of a breakdown in time and space, almost a black hole that sucks matter into chaos. I find them very entertaining, small quantum familiars which attempt to distort our lives playfully. I think that disruptions in the fabric of space prove that matter has a sense of humor.
Gewindeschrauben are threaded rods, screws or bolts. A Schraube is a screw or a propeller. The lamp used tiny Allen screws to maintain tension on its clever rod and pulley system. It seemed an appropriately trivial fireworks for the ending.