While we’re on the topic of ekphrasis (see yesterday’s post as well) here’s a poem from my book Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves. Below the text is a link to me reading the poem.
The Filmmakers Called It Art
He had to pay to see the movie
made about the carburetor factory
after it closed. Popcorn in the theater.
On the screen, his old place on the four-barrel line
across from the supervisor's glass shack.
The same as every morning,
ready to fire up. A movie with no people.
Static conveyors, rows of machine tool stations.
Shadowy punch presses, an open corridor.
Bright metal burrs still littered the floors.
Weeks afterward, he played the movie in his mind.
Frame by frame, all still shots now.
Cutting oil. Smeared hand rails. A pair of old
work gloves thrown onto a chair. He thought
he ought to be happy. Never going back.
**
I spent a couple summers working in a carburetor factory and you can trust me when I say there are dozens of finely designed parts to a carburetor. They all have to be either forged, or pressed from sheet metal, then carved up by machine tools, just so. Cut or sliced or drilled. Chrome (or other plating) applied; burrs removed. Everything put together. Tolerances are tight, and it’s amazing a carburetor can be made to work at all.
You can imagine the number of people it takes to make all those parts, run a factory (including a foundry) where materials comes in one door and good carburetors go out the other. However, fuel rails and injectors made carburetors a thing of the past–they were simpler, with few parts, easier to put together with fewer people. Factories downsized. Then came hybrids, and EVs… who knows what may be next.