The Impossible Machine
MACHINA POETIKA: Terrapin's "Free Verse"
3 SHORT STORIES 1 2 3 based upon
BASED UPON
I eventually tracked the source of the three
poems to a work of the Polish author or
pseudonym Slawomir Mrozek
His work titled The Elephant, an instant fiction
piece that is nonetheless four textual pages,
lengthier than any of the three, evokes major
qualities from each of them, often in a less
successful or more dated fashion:
THE ELEPHANT by SLAWOMIR MROZEK
The director of the zoological gardens has shown
himself ot be an upstart that regarded his animals
simply as stepping stones on the road to his own
career. He was indifferent to the additional
importance of his establishment. In his end the
giraffe had a short neck, the badger had no
burrow and the whistlers, having lost all interest,
whistled rarely and with some reluctance. These
shortcomings should not have been deserved,
especially as the zoo was often visited by parties
of schoolchildren
The zoo was in a provincial town, and it was short
of some of the most important animals, among
them the elephant. Three thousand rabbits were a
poor compensation for the noble giant. However,
as our country developed, the gaps were filled in
a well-planned manner
On the occasion of the anniversary of the
liberation, on 22nd July, the zoo was notified that
it had at long last been allocated an elephant. All
the staff, who were devoted to their work rejoiced
at the news. All the greater was their surprise
when they learned the director had sent a letter
to Warsaw, removing their allocation and putting
forward a plan for obtaining an elephant by more
economic means "I and all the staff" he had
written "Are fully aware how heavy a burden falls
upon the shoulders of public mothers and
foundry men because of an elephant mentioned
in your communication should be replaced by one
of our own procurement.
We can make an elephant out of rubber, of the
correct size, fill it with air, and place it behind
railings. It will be carefully painted the correct
color and then on close inspection will be
interesting words from the real animal. It is well
known that the elephant is a sluggish animal and
it was not rumored to jump about. In the notice on
the railings we can state that this particular
elephant is particularly sluggish. The money
saved in this way can be turned to the purchase
of a jet plane or the conservation of some church
monument "Kindly note that both the idea and its
executionmodest contribution to the women task
and struggle "I am etc" This communiction must
have reached a slow off-wind
When regarded his duties in a purely bureaucratic
manner and did not examine the least of the
matter but, following only the direction about
reduction of expenditure, accepted the director's
plan on using the Minestry's opposal.
The director issued instructions for the making of
the rubber elephant. The carcass must have been
filled with nearly two layers blowing into it. If
fromopposite eneds to keep the oeprators apart.
The work was to be completed xduring the night
because the people of the town, having heard
that our shipment was joining the zoo, were
anxious to see it the director insisted on haste
also becuase he expected a bonus should his
idea turn out to be a success.
The two keepers locked themselves in a shed
among boxes a workshop, and began to blow.
After hours of hard blowing they discovered the
rubber skin had risen only a few inches above the
floor and its bulge in no way resembled an
elephant. The night progressed outside, human
voices where stilled and only the cry of the
jackass interrupted the silence. Exhausted, the
keepers stopped blowing and made sure that teh
air already inside the elephant should not escape.
They were not young and were uncontented to
this kind of work
"If we were to go on at this rate" said one of them
"We shouldln't finish by morning And what am I
going to tell my missus? She'll never believe me if
I say I spent the night blowing up an elephant"
"Quite right" agreed the other second keeper
"Blowing up an elephatn is not an everyday job
And its all becuase our director is a leftist"
They resumed their blowing, but after another half
hour they felt too tired to continue. The bulge on
the floor was larger but still nothign like the
shape of an elephant
"Its getting harder all the time" said the first
keeper
"Its an uphill job, all right" agreed the second
"Let's have a little rest"
While they were resting, one of them noticed a
gas pipe ending in a valve. Could they not fill the
elephant with gas? he suggested to his mate
They decided to try this comment. The elephant to
the gas pipe, And the valve, unto their joy in a few
minutes there was a full-sized beast standing in
the hsed. It looked real: the enormous body, legs
like columns, huge ears, and the inevitable trunk.
Drawn by ambition the director had made sure of
having in his zoo a very large elephant indeed
"First rate" declared the keeper who had the idea
of using the gas "Now we can go home"
IN the morning the elephant was moved to a
special run in a central position, next to the
monkey cage placed in front of a large real rock it
looked fierce and magnificent
A big notice proclained: particularly sluggish
Hardly moves
Among the first visitors that morning was a party
of children from the local school
the teacher in charge of them was planning to
give them an object-lesson about the elphant
then halted the group in front of the animal and
began:
The elephant is a herbivorous animal. As he
moves his trunk it pulls out young trees and eats
their leaves"
The children were looking at the elephatn with
compitance and admiration. They were waiting for
it to pull out a young tree, but the beast stood still
behind its railings
"...The elephant is a direct descendant of the
now-extinct mammoth. Its not suprising,
therefore, that its the largest living land animal"
The more conscientious pupils were making notes
"Only the whale is heavier than the elphant, but
then the whale lives in the sea" Confusedly "that
on land the elephant reigns supreme"
A slight breeze moved the branches in the zoo
"...the weight of a full grown elephant is between
nine and thirteen thousand pounds"
At that moment the elephant shuddered and rose
in the air
For a few seconds it swayed just above the
ground, but a gust of wind blew it upward until its
mighty silhouette was against the sky. For a short
while people on the ground could see the four
circles of its feet, its bulging belly and trunk, but
soon propellied by the wind, the elephant soared
aobve the fence and clomb above the tree tops.
Astonished monkeys in the cage continued
staring in to the sky . They found the elephant in
the neighboring botanical gardens. It had landed
on a cactus and punctured its rubber hide.
The schoolchildren who had witnessed the scene
in the zoo soon started neglecting their studies
and turned into hooligans. It is reported that they
drunk liquor and broke windows. And they no
longer believe in elephants.
[Robert Shapard and James Thomas, eds Intro Charles
Dexter: Sudden Fiction International:Norton, 1989]
BASED UPON
I eventually tracked the source of the three
poems to a work of the Polish author or
pseudonym Slawomir Mrozek
His work titled The Elephant, an instant fiction
piece that is nonetheless four textual pages,
lengthier than any of the three, evokes major
qualities from each of them, often in a less
successful or more dated fashion:
THE ELEPHANT by SLAWOMIR MROZEK
The director of the zoological gardens has shown
himself ot be an upstart that regarded his animals
simply as stepping stones on the road to his own
career. He was indifferent to the additional
importance of his establishment. In his end the
giraffe had a short neck, the badger had no
burrow and the whistlers, having lost all interest,
whistled rarely and with some reluctance. These
shortcomings should not have been deserved,
especially as the zoo was often visited by parties
of schoolchildren
The zoo was in a provincial town, and it was short
of some of the most important animals, among
them the elephant. Three thousand rabbits were a
poor compensation for the noble giant. However,
as our country developed, the gaps were filled in
a well-planned manner
On the occasion of the anniversary of the
liberation, on 22nd July, the zoo was notified that
it had at long last been allocated an elephant. All
the staff, who were devoted to their work rejoiced
at the news. All the greater was their surprise
when they learned the director had sent a letter
to Warsaw, removing their allocation and putting
forward a plan for obtaining an elephant by more
economic means "I and all the staff" he had
written "Are fully aware how heavy a burden falls
upon the shoulders of public mothers and
foundry men because of an elephant mentioned
in your communication should be replaced by one
of our own procurement.
We can make an elephant out of rubber, of the
correct size, fill it with air, and place it behind
railings. It will be carefully painted the correct
color and then on close inspection will be
interesting words from the real animal. It is well
known that the elephant is a sluggish animal and
it was not rumored to jump about. In the notice on
the railings we can state that this particular
elephant is particularly sluggish. The money
saved in this way can be turned to the purchase
of a jet plane or the conservation of some church
monument "Kindly note that both the idea and its
executionmodest contribution to the women task
and struggle "I am etc" This communiction must
have reached a slow off-wind
When regarded his duties in a purely bureaucratic
manner and did not examine the least of the
matter but, following only the direction about
reduction of expenditure, accepted the director's
plan on using the Minestry's opposal.
The director issued instructions for the making of
the rubber elephant. The carcass must have been
filled with nearly two layers blowing into it. If
fromopposite eneds to keep the oeprators apart.
The work was to be completed xduring the night
because the people of the town, having heard
that our shipment was joining the zoo, were
anxious to see it the director insisted on haste
also becuase he expected a bonus should his
idea turn out to be a success.
The two keepers locked themselves in a shed
among boxes a workshop, and began to blow.
After hours of hard blowing they discovered the
rubber skin had risen only a few inches above the
floor and its bulge in no way resembled an
elephant. The night progressed outside, human
voices where stilled and only the cry of the
jackass interrupted the silence. Exhausted, the
keepers stopped blowing and made sure that teh
air already inside the elephant should not escape.
They were not young and were uncontented to
this kind of work
"If we were to go on at this rate" said one of them
"We shouldln't finish by morning And what am I
going to tell my missus? She'll never believe me if
I say I spent the night blowing up an elephant"
"Quite right" agreed the other second keeper
"Blowing up an elephatn is not an everyday job
And its all becuase our director is a leftist"
They resumed their blowing, but after another half
hour they felt too tired to continue. The bulge on
the floor was larger but still nothign like the
shape of an elephant
"Its getting harder all the time" said the first
keeper
"Its an uphill job, all right" agreed the second
"Let's have a little rest"
While they were resting, one of them noticed a
gas pipe ending in a valve. Could they not fill the
elephant with gas? he suggested to his mate
They decided to try this comment. The elephant to
the gas pipe, And the valve, unto their joy in a few
minutes there was a full-sized beast standing in
the hsed. It looked real: the enormous body, legs
like columns, huge ears, and the inevitable trunk.
Drawn by ambition the director had made sure of
having in his zoo a very large elephant indeed
"First rate" declared the keeper who had the idea
of using the gas "Now we can go home"
IN the morning the elephant was moved to a
special run in a central position, next to the
monkey cage placed in front of a large real rock it
looked fierce and magnificent
A big notice proclained: particularly sluggish
Hardly moves
Among the first visitors that morning was a party
of children from the local school
the teacher in charge of them was planning to
give them an object-lesson about the elphant
then halted the group in front of the animal and
began:
The elephant is a herbivorous animal. As he
moves his trunk it pulls out young trees and eats
their leaves"
The children were looking at the elephatn with
compitance and admiration. They were waiting for
it to pull out a young tree, but the beast stood still
behind its railings
"...The elephant is a direct descendant of the
now-extinct mammoth. Its not suprising,
therefore, that its the largest living land animal"
The more conscientious pupils were making notes
"Only the whale is heavier than the elphant, but
then the whale lives in the sea" Confusedly "that
on land the elephant reigns supreme"
A slight breeze moved the branches in the zoo
"...the weight of a full grown elephant is between
nine and thirteen thousand pounds"
At that moment the elephant shuddered and rose
in the air
For a few seconds it swayed just above the
ground, but a gust of wind blew it upward until its
mighty silhouette was against the sky. For a short
while people on the ground could see the four
circles of its feet, its bulging belly and trunk, but
soon propellied by the wind, the elephant soared
aobve the fence and clomb above the tree tops.
Astonished monkeys in the cage continued
staring in to the sky . They found the elephant in
the neighboring botanical gardens. It had landed
on a cactus and punctured its rubber hide.
The schoolchildren who had witnessed the scene
in the zoo soon started neglecting their studies
and turned into hooligans. It is reported that they
drunk liquor and broke windows. And they no
longer believe in elephants.
[Robert Shapard and James Thomas, eds Intro Charles
Dexter: Sudden Fiction International:Norton, 1989]
POEMS:
Upon Returning to a Garden
Do not follow in the footsteps
That House
Swing
Poets
Freedom from Happiness
Rainy Impressions
Figments of Elysium
A Cubic Wood
Tree of Seasons
To eat is not always to devour
A Rigorously Failed Poem
There have been instances
Onlook
Le Contrarienne
Tousselle
Le Turetta
Such variance formed as
makes discretion claer
The set idea of determined
marriage
Covette
Leaves in Light
Upon Returning to a Garden
Do not follow in the footsteps
That House
Swing
Poets
Freedom from Happiness
Rainy Impressions
Figments of Elysium
A Cubic Wood
Tree of Seasons
To eat is not always to devour
A Rigorously Failed Poem
There have been instances
Onlook
Le Contrarienne
Tousselle
Le Turetta
Such variance formed as
makes discretion claer
The set idea of determined
marriage
Covette
Leaves in Light
