Volume 1988 Issue 6 Article 8
7-15-1988
A Gremlin Complains of A Certain Omission
Joe R. Christopher
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Recommended Citation Christopher, Joe R. (1988) "A Gremlin Complains of A Certain Omission," The Mythic Circle: Vol. 1988 : Iss. 6 , Article 8. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol1988/iss6/8
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This poetry is available in The Mythic Circle: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol1988/iss6/8 ah ha! I hide it well and deep, A Gremlin Complains Of A so the memory keeps it and will keep-• while then its random time comes round! Certain Omission Or else, on business machines I've found a random billing error is fun! In fact, when all is said and done, To dictionaries I make figs! I don't think I'd, for milk and cookie, But yet I've read in Kathy Briggs' -• give up my games of making fluky. and I'm not in it! Curse her! pinch her! I like the whirr of business machines-• (HH heel just as a mode of censure!) much quieter than mining seams; American immigrants, indeed! but my success is put in doubt The ones she tells of didn't succeed when dictionaries leave me out! as we the Gathorns did--and do. I've strewn the stupid, error-filled pages (We're not afraid of metals, true!) out the windows and over the ledges! My granddaddy came from Cornwall over, May Shellycoat now haunt the Kate leaving the tin-mines, always a rover-- who forgot my glorious role in the state! silver we dug in New Mexico, (That is, unless, as a cousin told me, and gold in California. (No, she's dead--then I to curses don't hold me, no one's afraid of those!) But iron for what have I to do with souls? we've dug, and lately watched it burn Once dead, from me they've got paroles!) to glorious steel in Pennsylvania. But whether she's quick or whether dead-• (By ·1ately'? A hundred years--that'll learn ya!) that's not the point of what I've said: No elves, no elves, would go a-digging-- I'm proud I have, you understand, not iron!--or poof! they're whirlagigging! adapted well to my adopted land. But hatesome is the latest mode-• strip-mining by steam shovels the load! Where's now the quiet vein to tap? N.B. The reference seems to be to A Dictionary of Even below, it's all ~! daJl! Fairies. by Katherine Briggs (1976). Since the same with new machines to dig and probe. volume is published in the United States as An (Ah ya! I'm now machinaphobe!) Enclopedia of Fairies, it seems obvious that the I don't care much for industry either-• speaker was sent a copy from an English relative -• in Hitler's war we fled to the ether probably with a note on the omission. Briggs does (that is, the ordinary air!), have an item headed "American fairy immigrants." for government inspectors were Gathorns are mentioned by Briggs under" Knockers" filling the mines, Mabb curse their eyes! as part of the generally friendly mine-spirits of I dwelt in airplane factories Cornwall; obviously, the Gremlins (if they are really with siblings and dozen cousins more. descendants of the Gathorns) have lost some of their If I had known what was in store! original friendliness; it is possible they have interbred Cultural shock! It wasn't the hiding-• with some of the more malicious German Kobolds. for that was fun, amid the siding (There are those who maintain that the eastern coal and props and gadgets, and shipments new. mines in the United States are infested with Kobolds.) Around the clock all worked, it's true-- Since Briggs died in 1980, this may give an ap• but when we helped, they didn't know proximate date for this outburst. the rules, the fools! nor what they'd owe! If I set out to behave like a brownie, -- Joe R. Christopher I expect to be paid with food as bounty! I got revenge--ah, it was sweet, to pull the wires they'd soldered neat! Never, never left me an orange, so I loosened the bolts of a cockpits door-hinge! Since then I've lived all hither and thither, but courtesy's gone and customs wither; so wHkends I've spent in auto plants assuring of Monday's run the wants! Just now I'm in the computer business-• chipping away, and adding fritzness! My specialty--an order to cancel all programs to the least substantial;
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