The Beast

Ross Eisen

---

The Beast

“They can throw it out the window if they don’t like it.”        
                                            — Steve Jobs

I can still remember when
the beast was first let in our house.
My father struggled mightily
to work the damn thing out.
I only vaguely understood
its veins would feed it through the walls,
its thoughts moved through the air itself.
And when the beast had come alive
my father ceased to curse, and bragged:
        This was a marvel of our time,
        And better than the neighbours had.

The beast was but a humming shell
and I was but a boy of twelve
with no great vice or promise yet.
Up til then the afternoons were spent
in boredom playing cards or catch.
But every childhood must end,
and so the beast took its place
                           beside my bed.

The old teacher at the school,
had a room she called a lab,
with a dozen beasts or more therein,
their smell was odd and the air was cold
despite the heat the beasts emit
from underneath their plastic skin.
We learned to use the beasts for simple math
and how to make our fingers do a rigid dance
     so that the beasts could understand.
                       And understand they did.

The beast was an answer for every question,
my future living, my staid companion.
For work, they said it beats the factory,
in amusement, sheer necessity,
and, in love, first love, the beast alone could show
her life outside our little schoolroom row,
and all that she and womankind denied to me,
                                   and she would never know.

In time the beasts began to speak
Their own desires with my voice
To do the bidding of the beast or not,
If it had ever been, ceased to be a choice.
            I am the plow, not the master
            The beast drags me and I follow after.
Housing every memory,
telling what to want to be,
Oh, the beasts have set us free.
At last, I am more beast than me.

---

Ross Eisen is the Pedestrian’s resident poet.