Summary
Highlights
The poem begins by describing books as 'Caxton,' mechanical birds with many wings, treasured for their markings, capable of evoking strong sensations without physical pain, though never seen to fly. Mist is then depicted as the sky resting its 'soft machine' on the ground, making the world dim and 'bookish.'
Rain is introduced as the earth acting like a 'television,' making colors darker. A Model T car is described as a 'room with a lock inside,' where a key allows for swift movement. Time is personified as being tied to the wrist or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.
Telephones are referred to as a 'haunted apparatus' that snores when picked up. People carry them to their lips to soothe them with sounds, yet deliberately wake them with a finger. The poem concludes by noting that only the young are allowed to openly suffer, while adults retreat to a 'punishment room' to endure their pain alone, and everyone's pain has a different 'smell.'
At night, when colors 'die,' people are described as hiding in pairs and reading about themselves 'in color with their eyelids shut,' suggesting introspection and dreaming as the day ends.