Knurled Knobs.

The recurrence of dreams with silent doors and magnetic flat keys and porcelain fittings, that open onto dark rooms whose odor is unnatural, a sleeping porch yellow and ochre with wet rot, and whose boiled and scrubbed brass and flat marble and Air thick as envelope edge gum arabic And gutta percha carpet, Becomes the workweek living standard; Imitation handles, and ideogrammatic artwork Of classic ruins, of foxes torn to bits, of flowers captured And tortured in indentical frames All screwed flat near quilts so tight ones toes are crampbent at night The neon gas calls this hotel from hospice by hostel, and keeps some hostage nightly, with candy twists and honey peanuts: A diet of endless mindless flux that never crossed A threshhold of life before, Not even seen from afar Or at the home of friends, or indigents' corners, or the living rooms of Those sad dog-driven families to whom One sells encyclopedias and glimpses through the open door a life plate That is so strange, so other that no one should live in it. The lamps are dim as no one needs their light; they are Like no lamps humans use, no wickworks, and none have found The secret of their twisting switches or shot bolts Or pushbutton teats, or bifurcated toggles, or overhead indirect Dim lumens and mesomorphic electric plan, or byzantine connections, three chambers away. These are helpful rooms, though, cheerless mindful channels As gay as blockades, as dead as cages They bring the world to you, a Solomon in your daydreams, A waxworks cached flat at your feet.