The Wire and the Wing (Nikola Tesla)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You saw the motor
complete
in your head
before you drew it
because the part of you
that built things
built them first
in a room
behind your eyes
where the rotor
could spin
without the inconvenience
of existing yet
and the room
behind your eyes
had the warm
ozone-free hum
of a generator
that runs
on eidetic imagery
instead of coal
and the room
had better lighting
than any workshop
in New York.

[Verse 2]
You lit a room
in Colorado Springs
with current
pulled from the sky
through a coil
the size of a barn
and the lightning
you made on purpose
was taller
than the lightning
the sky made
by accident
and the photograph
of you
sitting in a chair
reading
while the artificial lightning
fills the room
behind you
has the calm
warm-filament smell
of a man
at the center
of a thing
he should not
have survived
and is not
worried about.

[Chorus]
You loved a pigeon.
That is
the sentence
the century
cannot
get past
and the century
is wrong
to get stuck
there
because the loneliness
of a man
who can see
the completed motor
in the dark
behind his eyes
but cannot keep
a friendship
past the second dinner
is the kind of loneliness
that ends
at a window
with a pigeon
because the pigeon
does not need
the second dinner
and the pigeon
had a light
in her eyes
and you
had been
building things
out of light
your whole life
and the pigeon
was not
a strange choice.
The pigeon
was the most
logical choice
you ever made.

[Outro]
The current
is in every wall
on the planet
tonight
and the man
who got the grid
named after him
electrocuted
an elephant
to prove
your current
was dangerous
and the elephant
is the part
nobody
talks about
at dinner
and you
would have preferred
the pigeon
every time.

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