Ode to the Wheel

The wheel really is quite a simple machine.
A circle on a stick. But someone invented it.  
We know this because we’re always being told not 
to re-invent it. “No need to re-invent the wheel,” 
we’re told.  Because it’s so basic.  A simple machine.
The circle is the simplest shape, the most perfect form, 
all the points equidistant from a single point.
It’s how the universe should work.  Revolving 
without rolling.  And is there rolling without wheels?
There are no wheels in nature.  Someone had to invent it. 
But once you’ve seen it, of course you want to invent it.  
Put it a circle on a stick and we can use it to move things. 
The circle, the perfect shape, the perfect machine. 
We all know nothing’s really round, but what if 
you could make something nearly round. Nearly perfect.  
Like the human heart, so beautiful, so imperfect. 
But if you could make it frictionless, it could 
carry anything.  Love, you mean. Yes of course, 
that was invented a long time ago.  Simple, 
perfect, frictionless. If only. Don’t tell me
there’s no need to re-invent it.  Re-inventing 
is what we all need to do, every generation, 
every person, every lover.  The wheel will turn.  
We’ll invent it. Let it turn.  Reinvent it.

Ode to the Pulley

And here’s to the pulley.  It seems 
like the most old-fashioned of the 
simple machines: it powers 
a flag pole or a theater curtain.  
A dumb waiter. A pail in a well. 
Something that should creak.  Something 
that might be called “a contraption,”  
that Wile E. Coyote might rig up 
to drop a heavy weight.  Something 
Rube Goldberg, himself an old-fashioned 
20th century construction, 
might use.  And terms like winch
or block and tackle:  muscular words.
Sweaty men in sailorsuits 
hoisting up the rigging.  Oh,
you could use motors.  You could use 
electricity, have it work
with the push of a button.
No need to put your back into it. 
Even then, it’s still old-fashioned.
Let us pull a curtain over this scene:
Skreeeek 
skreeeek 
skreeeek 
skreeeek

Ode to the Wedge

The wedge doesn’t move things 
or lift things or attach them.  
The wedge splits things.  Divides them 
apart.  Blows them up, unlike 
the screw which leaves a hole 
no bigger than itself.  
An axe is a wedge. It’s a wedge 
on a handle, so that 
you can swing it.  But who
is it that swings the axe,
who is it that pounds the wedge? 
Who cuts the trees and digs up the stumps? 
You have to clear the land
before you can build on it 
then plough it, another wedge.
Who is that mighty arm? Is it 
Progress?  The Will of the People? 
The Blood and Soil of the Nation? 
The Common Man? The Mother Church?
The ideal of Truth and Beauty? 
Freedom? Brotherhood? Does the axe 
rise higher than the head 
of the one who swings it?
Whoever drives the wedge picks
the songs the rest of us will sing.
Or maybe it’s the other way:

whoever calls the tunes drives the wedge.

Ode to the Inclined Plane

The inclined plane is so simple. 

It’s like math made visible.

I guess that makes it physics.  

Look: if you have to lift an object 

straight up, that’s a 90° plane. 

Make it easier, construct 

a 45° plane.  

Still too hard? 30°.

15°. Find your angle.  

Small angle, less effort! Oh,

but more time spent pushing.  

Large angle, short path.  But 

what if you could reduce 

the angle to almost nothing?  

Very little effort needed but

unending path.  Poor Sisyphus, 

it turns out he made the wrong wish. 

The work must be done, anyway.  

Less effort, and the path never ends; 

short path, and you have to keep pushing.

The work is always there.

Incline the plane and make your choice. 

Some people lift and some people push.

It’s a matter of inclination.

Either way, the work must be done.

Ode to the Screw

Pity the screw.  Poor screw.  

You know why.  In English 

its name means—you know what.  

We’re not supposed to say.  It means 

“fuck.” Screw means fuck.  Not gentle 

loving-making, but screwing.  Screw you!

He’s screwing his secretary.

Really screwed that guy over.  

Poor screw.  It’s a helix, you know  

It turns, it doesn’t pound.  

A nail goes straight in: bang! bang! bang! 

A screw turns a circle into 

a straight line.  You think that’s nothing?  

Listen—the ratio of a circle 

to a straight line is completely 

irrational, it’s pi, it can’t be expressed

as a fraction. But look at the screw go, 

turning and turning the circles 

into a delving straight line.  And look: 

it leaves something behind.  

Not sawdust, not debris, look: 

little wooden curlicues. 

Little spiral images 

of itself, made up of

the material it’s screwing 

or being screwed into.

Lovely screw.

Ode to the Lever

A friend was teaching at a Waldorf school and told me that when the students studied astronomy, they sang songs and recited poems about the planets. I asked if they had songs and poems when they studied mechanics.  She told me they don't, so I thought I'd write a series of odes to the six simple machines.  Here's one for the lever:

The lever must be the simplest simple machine,

as simple as (if you’ll excuse me saying so) 

picking your nose.  And yet Archimedes—

the guy who jumped out of his bathtub and shouted, 

“Eureka!”—that same Archimedes said: Give me 

a place to stand and I will move the world.  So he knew.  

He knew the power of the simplest simple machine. 

But also: he needed that place to stand, he said.  

Sure, a place to stand, we all want that.  And for him, 

the earth was the center of the cosmos. So how far out 

do you have to go to get that “place to stand?”  

Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is completely 

outside the world, but he doesn’t need a lever. He’s divine. 

But what’s the place for the man who lept out of his tub?

What’s the place for the man who wants to move the world

with just a stick? Outside the earth, but still in the world,

wearing a space helmet and a toga.  He’ll do it. Give him

a place, he’ll do it.  He’ll move the world with one big shove.

Only the place to stand, it’s all anyone needs.

We all need it, just a place to stand.