The Sunday Poet: Ari Alkalay Appel

Poet Ari Appel

Ari Alkalay Appel is a poet and essayist who lives and works in Roxbury. He enjoys cycling and woodworking during his free time. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Newton North High School. He studied at Whitman College in Eastern Washington, where he obtained a degree in Rhetoric Studies. He also studied at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Manic Mechanic

My brain is flooding with information;

Information circulates through my neuro-circuitry

Like an electrical current.

I am dizzy, my vision is distorted, and

My head pounds at three second intervals.

The world is spinning.

My hands are engaged with tools.

I am twisting a wrench at every moment,

But I do not know what I am fixing.

The bikes pass through my workstand somehow

But my I am focused on the abyss,

The winding gaps in the scrap butyl tubes in a pile

Under my stand, coated with an indescribable white chemical powder

Leftover from their manufacture.

I can't stare at the pile enough;

It seems to provide the only symmetry to my mind's condition

That's where I've gone,

That's what I'll tell my friends and family:

I'm stuck staring endlessly into a pile of scrap butyl.

You may see me look elsewhere, but

You know where I really am.

Somehow, I still get the job done.