The Spirit Mover, 1854 Poem by Andrew Duncan

(Spirits instructed Roger Spear to make a machine)
the neural telescope, the chalk writing
in his brain, the On High's make order.
Vortexes forming words. a cosmic plughole
drains. barriers thin on the cliff at Lynn
in cracked air. Revd. Spear rapt, a call centre.
missing music or, for example, a Cody novelette,
bodiless words chalking out a machine design
two thousand dollars of piece parts at High Rock cottage

up with the nineteenth. the spirit world modernising
reads knowledge in the eyes of the dead
way past the Bourbons. laughs at the Romanovs.
envious of the Hapsburgs' railway concessions.
techno sylph's trance downloads franchised, Speared,
construction loyally done without analytical overlay.
Yankee spirits with barns, abounding good sense.
electric ships, circular cities shipped as kits
technical details delivered in 200 updates
a kind of waffling of brass and copper

the four winds' cymbal under the roof of trance. slender
antennae spiring to where ideas come from
driven by words or weather.
fin flash. crash barrier. Revd. Spear lashed, in a bell of
‘metal plates, strips, and gemstones', diver,
bad vibrations damped, hauls up to the Mover
it is a new age a stream of light from his body
the device of unknown purpose — the spirits' Model T —
starts in to tremble

small thrills of bells and copper rods. hairs rare.
the nerves unsteady for hearing the ghostly.

falling to the surface of the earth
like pennies to the bottom of the sea.
small fossil of an electricized future. fine turns,
the making visible of a self-stating vortex
winding on. The Mover pauses its paces, sits out,
splutters, can't find a groove. no ding or tinkle.
some spirits deceive. some don't grasp engineering principles.

High times in Cattaraugus County
that lofty electrical position
inside a rage machine, the good people of the parish
riled up to a storm, earthing a force
they shout the same words, smash
the Mover
disaggregates into zinc and brass
the shell working in a new mode as modules trip out
spirits rescued, forked crackles, blue parachute. bale-out.
gulp cobalt. up and away. from the disassembly.