![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
somethingdarkerPotential Titles: Vehicles [category].
AI:
Like AI hanging over us doesn't hang - Mike Tyler "Palazzo Tartaruga"
Anchor.
Android:
In the lyrics of songs written by androids - Fiona Lu "Turing Test"
The fantasy of cyborgs and androids - Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers "Spare Parts"
Antenna.
Apparatus:
Apparatus for detecting fog - E.J. Pratt "Overheard in a Cove"
The self's delicate apparatus crumpled - Vijay Seshadri "Goya's Mired Men Fighting with Cudgels"
The self's delicate apparatus crumpled in the wide pan of the brain - Vijay Seshadri "Goya's Mired Men Fighting with Cudgels"
Appliance:
A museum of appliances on every porch - Analicia Sotelo "Eating the Moon in Cotulla, TX"
Artifice.
Automaton:
A promenade of empty shells, automatons - Mike Allen "Strange Cargo"
Autopilot:
An autopilot through the scars to travel in time - Yaxkin Melchy Ramos "The Boxwood Sketches" transl. by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Axle.
Backseat:
Lying in the backseat behind all my questions - Naomi Shihab Nye "Making a Fist"
Backstand:
In the backstand of our existence - m.s. RedCherries "the end cannot be me"
Ballast:
Shipped silver for common ballast - William H. Davies "The Child and the Mariner"
With ballast of round thunder - Richard Hughes "The Rolling Saint"
His heart's not ballasted with stone - Herman Melville "Clarel" [excerpt - The Inscription]
And our ballast is old wine - Thomas Love Peacock "The Men of Gotham"
Barbed Wire.
Battery:
Some unfathomable archaic battery - Lora Gray "We Are All Monsters Here" [Strange Horizons 22 Aug. 2022]
Beam.
Bilge:
Deep in the bilges of frigates - David Tomas Martinez "The Mechanics of Men"
Blowpipe:
Under corrugated blowpipes fifty feet high - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Whistle"
Bolt.
Bracket:
The starry bracket of their lips - Robert Nichols "A Faun's Holiday"
Caught between brackets and barricades - Jeffrey Pethybridge "Note on Method"
Brake.
Brake Light:
A line of brake lights blazing - Charles Rafferty "Daylight Moon"
Bulkhead:
Builds a bulkhead 'twixt Despair and the Edge of Nothing - Rudyard Kipling "The Supports"
Calliper:
Neither rule nor calliper to judge the matter by - Rudyard Kipling "Jobson's Amen"
Cantilever:
Cantilevers in chalk spray - Janet Kauffman "An Elaboration of Stalk"
Ice plates stack and cantilever - Janet Kauffman "Glossed Over"
Balanced, cantilevered, interlocked - Stephen Yenser "Vertumnal [excerpt]"
Carburetor:
A broken carburetor of sobs - David Tomas Martinez "The Only Mexican"
CCTV:
CCTV lenses, rusted wide - CP Nwankwo "Error 404: Expiation Not Found" [Strange Horizons 20 Oct. 2025]
Chain.
Chain Link:
Chain link and concertina wire - Janet Kauffman "Stress Position"
As he watches from behind the wire diamonds of chain-link - Alexandra Lytton Regalado "La Cachiporrista"
Circuit.
Clamp:
Clamping down on each homesick wish - Lisa M. Bradley "The Skin Walker's Wife"
Clamps his nostril and shuts his eye - Sidney Lanier "The Symphony" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, June 1875, v.XV]
Clockwork.
Cockpit:
The blacked-out cockpit of your mind - Wayne Miller "Mind-Body Problem"
Cog.
Compute/Computer.
Concertina Wire:
Chain link and concertina wire - Janet Kauffman "Stress Position"
Contraption:
The rotating contraption of a second baptism - Giorgiomaria Cornelio "La consegna delle braci [The Distribution of Embers]" transl. by Moira Egan
Conveyor Belt:
As if correct spelling is what could stop the conveyor belt - Dean Young "Selected Recent and New Errors" [Poetry July/August 2008]
Crank:
A hundred pulleys and cranks between - G.K. Chesterton "The Good Rich Man"
Cranked to eleven by the sublimation of despair - Edgar Kunz "New Year"
Some crank in me tightens the whirly-spring - Dean Young "Easy as Falling Down Stairs" [Poetry Nov. 2007]
Culvert:
Culvert, and petrel, and mangonel - Brinhild "The Rime of Sir Lionne" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.32-v.I, 9 Aug. 1884]
The culverts where night squats - Betsy Sharp "Alarm"
Cyborg/Cybernetics.
Cyclotron:
Cyclotron eyes focusing on the deep - Charles Wright "The Great Blue Heron and the Tree of Night"
Dashboard:
As the dashboard races to a waiting disaster - Mary Jo Bang "Before the Absolute Perfection Dying Achieves"
Against the dashboard of stars - William Brewer "In the Room of the Overdosed, an Ember"
The keys are on the dashboard - Elizabeth Willis "Ephemeral Stream"
Device.
Diagram.
Diode:
Blue diode digits flash in my eyes - Lorraine Schein "Merlin"
Doornail:
As dead as doornails used to be - John Grey "The Computer vs. My Personal Evolution"
Dynamo:
A dynamo of swirled memory, of fire-bursts - Ian Goh "Firework"
The daze of nature's chlorophyll dynamos - Joanne Merriam "The Bather"
Dynamo of strength uncurbed - Christopher Morley "America, 1917"
Electronic:
A prayer electronically conveyed - Eric Gamalinda "Zero Gravity"
In podcast and electronic ink - Fady Joudah "[...]"
Engine.
Engineer.
Filter.
Fulcrum:
The lever finds its fulcrum - Arthur Hugh Clough "Dipsychus"
Dance in the fulcrum of history - Kwame Dawes "from 'A Coda to History: 28. It Is Not As If'"
A fulcrum of recognition - Edwin Torres "The Circle at One End"
Fuse Box:
Tear into the fuse box of the chest and soar away - Dean Young "Shamanism 101"
Fuselage:
Below the fuselage of my heart - Jan Beatty "Sitting Nude"
Burst into extinction against the shocked metals of the fuselage - Harry Martinson "Aniara 69" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg
Gadget:
Old furnitures, obsolete machineries and funny gadgets - Mukut Borpujari "Stoic"
Gangplank:
In the gangplank desert - Cyrus Cassells "Courage Song for Scott Warren"
Gas Pedal:
When you feel rigor mortis in the gas pedal - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"
Gauge/Gage.
Gear.
Girder:
Forgotten nurseries of girders and axels - Kyle Dargan "The Robots are Coming"
Grate.
Handle.
Hard Drive:
Try to outbid the rustling of the hard drive - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"
Hardware:
Rescued a fortune by making hardware and debts - Walter Léon Hess "Feline Philosophy by Thomas Cat: Thirty-Eighth Caterwaul"
Hasp:
At the hasped door of intimidation - Rebecca G. Biber "Pied Piper"
The Keeper of the Sky has hasped his Doors - Wallace Irwin "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Jr."
Headlight.
Helm.
Hinge.
Hull.
Hydraulic:
There's hydraulics to a daisy - Vachel Lindsay "Another Word on the Scientific Aspiration"
I Beam:
Walking the I beams of infinite rooms - Wyatt Prunty "Last Century"
iPod:
Before the mad clicking on an iPod commenced to spin - Dimitri Reyes "Speakers"
Joist:
Wood ripped from studs and joists - Alison Hawthorne Deming "Stairway to Heaven"
Keel.
Keyboard:
Entering the computer through the keyboard - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"
On a keyboard made of compressed starlight - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]
Hewn of stylus, of keyboard & character - David Wojahn "For the Scribe Gar.Una of Uruk, 3,000 B. C."
Knob/Doorknob.
Lever.
Lid.
Lightbox:
Flip off this lightbox and its scroll of dread - Nickole Brown "A Prayer to Talk to Animals"
Machine.
Machinery.
Mainspring:
Hands forced forward by the mainspring's spiral torsion - J.P. Grasser "time bending / tongue / entwine / the betwixt"
There's a mainspring to the bee - Vachel Lindsay "Another Word on the Scientific Aspiration"
To find whatever mainspring made things go - E.L. Mayo "Letter to My Grandfather's Picture"
Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide - Friederich Schiller "Friendship" transl. not credited
Mast.
Mechanical/Mechanism.
Meter.
Millstone.
Model.
Mortis:
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite - Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"
Motherboard:
Gave his motherboard its own mirror - Tamara Jerée "Warship Captain Application [Section 29.2 Saved as Draft in SAIS]"
amoebas in your motherboards - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "Spaceshp For Sale"
Motor:
Mix cigars and cloves and motor oil - Brooke Abbey "How to Adult"
With four motors on a single flight - Nicolás Guillén "Exile" transl. by Roberto Marquez and David Arthur McMurray
Motors that breathe oxygen and oil - Conrad Hilberry "Quatrain"
Nail.
Oar.
Paddle:
Paddling past pebbly beaches - William Hodgson Ellis "Maskinogewagaming"
That paddles in a halcyon sea - Christina Rossetti "A Birthday"
Pause Button:
Early in the era of the pause button - Dan Chiasson "Tackle Football"
Pedal:
When you feel rigor mortis in the gas pedal - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"
Pendulum.
Periscope:
Set my periscope on breath of dreaming - CAConrad "Neptune.4"
Stretched a long periscope toward the multiplying horizons - Alafia Nicole Sessions "Fable with Cyst, Celestial Being & Sacrifice"
Periscoping centuries pursue - Yang Lian "Venice Elegy 2 Rot Poem" transl. by Brian Holton
Pilot Light:
A pilot light inside your sleep - Wayne Miller "Mind-Body Problem"
By the flamethrower's pilot light - Connor Yeck "The Thing (1982) as Silent Film"
Piston:
temper a piston with cane syrup - DaMaris B. Hill "Come. Pray. Know"
descendant of pistons & drive trains - Jose Olivarez "now i'm bologna"
Train piston for hock & hoof - Brandon Som "Resistors"
Though these be days of steam-revolving pistons - "The Times" [The Knickerbocker v.10, no.4, October 1837]
Pivot:
The pivot-point of bliss - James H. Cousins "The Blind Father"
On a crystal pivot burned and swung - Louise Imogen Guiney "The Wooing Pine"
The very acme of my woe, the pivot of my pride - Georgia Douglas Johnson "Little Son" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]
To make the light pivot - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Helmet"
Plank.
Plate Glass:
Catch yourself in a plate glass window - francine j. harris "Reflections in a Pool of Hair"
Platform:
flat platform of the dragon's nest - M. Frost "View" [Strange Horizons 31 March 2025]
Another moment arriving on the next platform - Edward Hirsch "Fall"
The platform winding down - Keith Leonard "Museum"
Plywood:
Surrendering to a piece of plywood - Tyree Daye "Friday Night on the Hill"
A plywood squirrel perched on cement - Alison Hawthorne Deming "Stairway to Heaven"
A barge of plywood and empty milk cartons - Timothy Donnelly "Globus Hystericus"
Four letters in painted plywooden proclamation - John M. Ford "Troy: the Movie"
Nothing but queries and plywood - Brian Teare "Long After Hopkins"
Pneumatic:
No icy jackhammer pneumatics - Carolina Ebeid "Relapsing/Remitting"
Porthole:
Walk the borders of the porthole - Annie Bolger "Sijo from a Spaceship Escaping a Dying Planet" [Strange Horizons 3 Nov. 2025]
Program.
Prop.
Prow.
Pulley:
A hundred pulleys and cranks between - G.K. Chesterton "The Good Rich Man"
The wheel and pulley, the wedge, all our inventions - Sara Nicholson "What Ails Me"
Gear and pulley, all coiled spring and iron will - M. Bartley Seigel "Beach Glass"
Pump.
Pylon:
Standalone heron borrowing a pylon - Brian Blanchfield "Edge of Water, Portage Bay, Washington"
Pylons and monoliths went on by ages - Gordon Bottomley "Babel: The Gate of the God"
Haunt the gloom of grumbling pylons vast - Clark Ashton Smith "Revenant" [Fantasy Fan, v.1, no.7, Mar. 1934]
Radio.
Rear-View Mirror:
Each mistake receding in the rear-view mirror - Jazno Francoeur "Home"
Looking back from the rearview and parked alone - Joseph Millar "Job"
Our glory-days in the rear-view mirror - Andre F. Peltier "Miyagi's Wisdom and the Lunch-Table Debates"
Retrofit:
Retrofitted to permit travel in reverse - Rachel Rodman "The Past Is a Foreign Country"
Rewind Button:
Press the rewind button on the altar pyre - Angela Liu "The Church at the Edge of Time" [Strange Horizons 14 April 2025]
Rivet.
Robot:
A duckling imprinted on a robot duck - Merri Andrew "Robot Duckling Learns the Land"
Replaced by housewife robots, vacant-eyed and acquiesent - Gwynne Garfinkle "Misogyny" [Strange Horizons 13 April 2015]
Turns another into a robot or a parasite or a maniac - Mark Jarman "If I Were Paul"
The potential dangers of sex robots - Elizabeth Knapp "My Brain Is Mad for Baudrillard"
Rudder.
Safety Pin:
Bluff a flock of dragons with a safety pin - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"
Sail.
Scope.
Screw.
Slat:
A system of seeing through slats - Mary Jo Bang "Sure, It's a Little Game. You, Me, Our Minds"
The strip of light between the slats - Holly Iglesias "I Can Afford Neither the Rain"
Angled slats of aquamarine - Campbell McGrath "Joseph Brodsky in Venice (1981)"
Socket.
Software:
And nirvana comes with a software update - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]
Solder:
Your own broken and soldered together heart - Mouna Ammar "Permission"
Soldered in the mind's furnace - Shara McCallum "Penelope"
Spar.
Spoke (noun).
Sprocket:
Tapping and tuning the springs and sprockets - Carl Dennis "Bimini Queen"
Above sprocket-punctured skylines - Yona Harvey "Dark and Lovely After Take-Off (A Future)"
Steerage:
Insidious as rats in steerage - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"
Stud.
Synthetic/Synthesis.
Tackle:
Tying down the wind with rope or chain or tackle - Bruce Boston "Wind People"
Tailpipe:
Hitch-hike on the tailpipe of a car - Duane Ackerson "Little Ghosts"
A bouquet of orchids lifts from its tailpipe - Kaveh Akbar "Orchids Are Sprouting from the Floorboards"
Tank:
The Sensory Deprivation Tanks for Life Resistant Arrivals(tm) - Katie Condon "The Insurance Representative Tells Me How Much the Baby's Delivery Will Cost"
While the passengers sleep in crygenic tanks - Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. "Ice Magic"
Tenon:
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite - Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"
Throttle.
Timber.
Tire [wheel].
Top-Sail:
And the top-sail dripping wine - Herbert Randall "Off"
Turbine:
Money piled up under the turbined lamplight - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"
Vacuum Tubes:
Our dusty vacuum tubes still warm to the pinch of electricity - M. Bartley Seigel "The Mosquito Inn"
Valve:
Shut his rusty valves the tighter - John Greenleaf Whittier "Voyage of the Jettie"
Vane/Weathervane.
Vent.
Weld.
Wheel.
Whirly-Spring:
Some crank in me tightens the whirly-spring - Dean Young "Easy as Falling Down Stairs" [Poetry Nov. 2007]
Widget:
Loving sticks a widget into the machinery of doubt - Mónica Gomery "The End Is the Beginning"
Winch:
On a winch in need of oil - John Masefield "Spunyarn"
Brace the arms that help the winches round - John Masefield "Spunyarn"
Wire.
Wythes:
Bound him with wythes of the willow and fir - George Warwick "Schneider Von Groot's Christmas Dream"
Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.
AI:
Like AI hanging over us doesn't hang - Mike Tyler "Palazzo Tartaruga"
Anchor.
Android:
In the lyrics of songs written by androids - Fiona Lu "Turing Test"
The fantasy of cyborgs and androids - Elizabeth Kestrel Rogers "Spare Parts"
Antenna.
Apparatus:
Apparatus for detecting fog - E.J. Pratt "Overheard in a Cove"
The self's delicate apparatus crumpled - Vijay Seshadri "Goya's Mired Men Fighting with Cudgels"
The self's delicate apparatus crumpled in the wide pan of the brain - Vijay Seshadri "Goya's Mired Men Fighting with Cudgels"
Appliance:
A museum of appliances on every porch - Analicia Sotelo "Eating the Moon in Cotulla, TX"
Artifice.
Automaton:
A promenade of empty shells, automatons - Mike Allen "Strange Cargo"
Autopilot:
An autopilot through the scars to travel in time - Yaxkin Melchy Ramos "The Boxwood Sketches" transl. by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Axle.
Backseat:
Lying in the backseat behind all my questions - Naomi Shihab Nye "Making a Fist"
Backstand:
In the backstand of our existence - m.s. RedCherries "the end cannot be me"
Ballast:
Shipped silver for common ballast - William H. Davies "The Child and the Mariner"
With ballast of round thunder - Richard Hughes "The Rolling Saint"
His heart's not ballasted with stone - Herman Melville "Clarel" [excerpt - The Inscription]
And our ballast is old wine - Thomas Love Peacock "The Men of Gotham"
Barbed Wire.
Battery:
Some unfathomable archaic battery - Lora Gray "We Are All Monsters Here" [Strange Horizons 22 Aug. 2022]
Beam.
Bilge:
Deep in the bilges of frigates - David Tomas Martinez "The Mechanics of Men"
Blowpipe:
Under corrugated blowpipes fifty feet high - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Whistle"
Bolt.
Bracket:
The starry bracket of their lips - Robert Nichols "A Faun's Holiday"
Caught between brackets and barricades - Jeffrey Pethybridge "Note on Method"
Brake.
Brake Light:
A line of brake lights blazing - Charles Rafferty "Daylight Moon"
Bulkhead:
Builds a bulkhead 'twixt Despair and the Edge of Nothing - Rudyard Kipling "The Supports"
Calliper:
Neither rule nor calliper to judge the matter by - Rudyard Kipling "Jobson's Amen"
Cantilever:
Cantilevers in chalk spray - Janet Kauffman "An Elaboration of Stalk"
Ice plates stack and cantilever - Janet Kauffman "Glossed Over"
Balanced, cantilevered, interlocked - Stephen Yenser "Vertumnal [excerpt]"
Carburetor:
A broken carburetor of sobs - David Tomas Martinez "The Only Mexican"
CCTV:
CCTV lenses, rusted wide - CP Nwankwo "Error 404: Expiation Not Found" [Strange Horizons 20 Oct. 2025]
Chain.
Chain Link:
Chain link and concertina wire - Janet Kauffman "Stress Position"
As he watches from behind the wire diamonds of chain-link - Alexandra Lytton Regalado "La Cachiporrista"
Circuit.
Clamp:
Clamping down on each homesick wish - Lisa M. Bradley "The Skin Walker's Wife"
Clamps his nostril and shuts his eye - Sidney Lanier "The Symphony" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, June 1875, v.XV]
Clockwork.
Cockpit:
The blacked-out cockpit of your mind - Wayne Miller "Mind-Body Problem"
Cog.
Compute/Computer.
Concertina Wire:
Chain link and concertina wire - Janet Kauffman "Stress Position"
Contraption:
The rotating contraption of a second baptism - Giorgiomaria Cornelio "La consegna delle braci [The Distribution of Embers]" transl. by Moira Egan
Conveyor Belt:
As if correct spelling is what could stop the conveyor belt - Dean Young "Selected Recent and New Errors" [Poetry July/August 2008]
Crank:
A hundred pulleys and cranks between - G.K. Chesterton "The Good Rich Man"
Cranked to eleven by the sublimation of despair - Edgar Kunz "New Year"
Some crank in me tightens the whirly-spring - Dean Young "Easy as Falling Down Stairs" [Poetry Nov. 2007]
Culvert:
Culvert, and petrel, and mangonel - Brinhild "The Rime of Sir Lionne" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.32-v.I, 9 Aug. 1884]
The culverts where night squats - Betsy Sharp "Alarm"
Cyborg/Cybernetics.
Cyclotron:
Cyclotron eyes focusing on the deep - Charles Wright "The Great Blue Heron and the Tree of Night"
Dashboard:
As the dashboard races to a waiting disaster - Mary Jo Bang "Before the Absolute Perfection Dying Achieves"
Against the dashboard of stars - William Brewer "In the Room of the Overdosed, an Ember"
The keys are on the dashboard - Elizabeth Willis "Ephemeral Stream"
Device.
Diagram.
Diode:
Blue diode digits flash in my eyes - Lorraine Schein "Merlin"
Doornail:
As dead as doornails used to be - John Grey "The Computer vs. My Personal Evolution"
Dynamo:
A dynamo of swirled memory, of fire-bursts - Ian Goh "Firework"
The daze of nature's chlorophyll dynamos - Joanne Merriam "The Bather"
Dynamo of strength uncurbed - Christopher Morley "America, 1917"
Electronic:
A prayer electronically conveyed - Eric Gamalinda "Zero Gravity"
In podcast and electronic ink - Fady Joudah "[...]"
Engine.
Engineer.
Filter.
Fulcrum:
The lever finds its fulcrum - Arthur Hugh Clough "Dipsychus"
Dance in the fulcrum of history - Kwame Dawes "from 'A Coda to History: 28. It Is Not As If'"
A fulcrum of recognition - Edwin Torres "The Circle at One End"
Fuse Box:
Tear into the fuse box of the chest and soar away - Dean Young "Shamanism 101"
Fuselage:
Below the fuselage of my heart - Jan Beatty "Sitting Nude"
Burst into extinction against the shocked metals of the fuselage - Harry Martinson "Aniara 69" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg
Gadget:
Old furnitures, obsolete machineries and funny gadgets - Mukut Borpujari "Stoic"
Gangplank:
In the gangplank desert - Cyrus Cassells "Courage Song for Scott Warren"
Gas Pedal:
When you feel rigor mortis in the gas pedal - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"
Gauge/Gage.
Gear.
Girder:
Forgotten nurseries of girders and axels - Kyle Dargan "The Robots are Coming"
Grate.
Handle.
Hard Drive:
Try to outbid the rustling of the hard drive - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"
Hardware:
Rescued a fortune by making hardware and debts - Walter Léon Hess "Feline Philosophy by Thomas Cat: Thirty-Eighth Caterwaul"
Hasp:
At the hasped door of intimidation - Rebecca G. Biber "Pied Piper"
The Keeper of the Sky has hasped his Doors - Wallace Irwin "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Jr."
Headlight.
Helm.
Hinge.
Hull.
Hydraulic:
There's hydraulics to a daisy - Vachel Lindsay "Another Word on the Scientific Aspiration"
I Beam:
Walking the I beams of infinite rooms - Wyatt Prunty "Last Century"
iPod:
Before the mad clicking on an iPod commenced to spin - Dimitri Reyes "Speakers"
Joist:
Wood ripped from studs and joists - Alison Hawthorne Deming "Stairway to Heaven"
Keel.
Keyboard:
Entering the computer through the keyboard - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"
On a keyboard made of compressed starlight - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]
Hewn of stylus, of keyboard & character - David Wojahn "For the Scribe Gar.Una of Uruk, 3,000 B. C."
Knob/Doorknob.
Lever.
Lid.
Lightbox:
Flip off this lightbox and its scroll of dread - Nickole Brown "A Prayer to Talk to Animals"
Machine.
Machinery.
Mainspring:
Hands forced forward by the mainspring's spiral torsion - J.P. Grasser "time bending / tongue / entwine / the betwixt"
There's a mainspring to the bee - Vachel Lindsay "Another Word on the Scientific Aspiration"
To find whatever mainspring made things go - E.L. Mayo "Letter to My Grandfather's Picture"
Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide - Friederich Schiller "Friendship" transl. not credited
Mast.
Mechanical/Mechanism.
Meter.
Millstone.
Model.
Mortis:
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite - Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"
Motherboard:
Gave his motherboard its own mirror - Tamara Jerée "Warship Captain Application [Section 29.2 Saved as Draft in SAIS]"
amoebas in your motherboards - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "Spaceshp For Sale"
Motor:
Mix cigars and cloves and motor oil - Brooke Abbey "How to Adult"
With four motors on a single flight - Nicolás Guillén "Exile" transl. by Roberto Marquez and David Arthur McMurray
Motors that breathe oxygen and oil - Conrad Hilberry "Quatrain"
Nail.
Oar.
Paddle:
Paddling past pebbly beaches - William Hodgson Ellis "Maskinogewagaming"
That paddles in a halcyon sea - Christina Rossetti "A Birthday"
Pause Button:
Early in the era of the pause button - Dan Chiasson "Tackle Football"
Pedal:
When you feel rigor mortis in the gas pedal - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"
Pendulum.
Periscope:
Set my periscope on breath of dreaming - CAConrad "Neptune.4"
Stretched a long periscope toward the multiplying horizons - Alafia Nicole Sessions "Fable with Cyst, Celestial Being & Sacrifice"
Periscoping centuries pursue - Yang Lian "Venice Elegy 2 Rot Poem" transl. by Brian Holton
Pilot Light:
A pilot light inside your sleep - Wayne Miller "Mind-Body Problem"
By the flamethrower's pilot light - Connor Yeck "The Thing (1982) as Silent Film"
Piston:
temper a piston with cane syrup - DaMaris B. Hill "Come. Pray. Know"
descendant of pistons & drive trains - Jose Olivarez "now i'm bologna"
Train piston for hock & hoof - Brandon Som "Resistors"
Though these be days of steam-revolving pistons - "The Times" [The Knickerbocker v.10, no.4, October 1837]
Pivot:
The pivot-point of bliss - James H. Cousins "The Blind Father"
On a crystal pivot burned and swung - Louise Imogen Guiney "The Wooing Pine"
The very acme of my woe, the pivot of my pride - Georgia Douglas Johnson "Little Son" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]
To make the light pivot - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Helmet"
Plank.
Plate Glass:
Catch yourself in a plate glass window - francine j. harris "Reflections in a Pool of Hair"
Platform:
flat platform of the dragon's nest - M. Frost "View" [Strange Horizons 31 March 2025]
Another moment arriving on the next platform - Edward Hirsch "Fall"
The platform winding down - Keith Leonard "Museum"
Plywood:
Surrendering to a piece of plywood - Tyree Daye "Friday Night on the Hill"
A plywood squirrel perched on cement - Alison Hawthorne Deming "Stairway to Heaven"
A barge of plywood and empty milk cartons - Timothy Donnelly "Globus Hystericus"
Four letters in painted plywooden proclamation - John M. Ford "Troy: the Movie"
Nothing but queries and plywood - Brian Teare "Long After Hopkins"
Pneumatic:
No icy jackhammer pneumatics - Carolina Ebeid "Relapsing/Remitting"
Porthole:
Walk the borders of the porthole - Annie Bolger "Sijo from a Spaceship Escaping a Dying Planet" [Strange Horizons 3 Nov. 2025]
Program.
Prop.
Prow.
Pulley:
A hundred pulleys and cranks between - G.K. Chesterton "The Good Rich Man"
The wheel and pulley, the wedge, all our inventions - Sara Nicholson "What Ails Me"
Gear and pulley, all coiled spring and iron will - M. Bartley Seigel "Beach Glass"
Pump.
Pylon:
Standalone heron borrowing a pylon - Brian Blanchfield "Edge of Water, Portage Bay, Washington"
Pylons and monoliths went on by ages - Gordon Bottomley "Babel: The Gate of the God"
Haunt the gloom of grumbling pylons vast - Clark Ashton Smith "Revenant" [Fantasy Fan, v.1, no.7, Mar. 1934]
Radio.
Rear-View Mirror:
Each mistake receding in the rear-view mirror - Jazno Francoeur "Home"
Looking back from the rearview and parked alone - Joseph Millar "Job"
Our glory-days in the rear-view mirror - Andre F. Peltier "Miyagi's Wisdom and the Lunch-Table Debates"
Retrofit:
Retrofitted to permit travel in reverse - Rachel Rodman "The Past Is a Foreign Country"
Rewind Button:
Press the rewind button on the altar pyre - Angela Liu "The Church at the Edge of Time" [Strange Horizons 14 April 2025]
Rivet.
Robot:
A duckling imprinted on a robot duck - Merri Andrew "Robot Duckling Learns the Land"
Replaced by housewife robots, vacant-eyed and acquiesent - Gwynne Garfinkle "Misogyny" [Strange Horizons 13 April 2015]
Turns another into a robot or a parasite or a maniac - Mark Jarman "If I Were Paul"
The potential dangers of sex robots - Elizabeth Knapp "My Brain Is Mad for Baudrillard"
Rudder.
Safety Pin:
Bluff a flock of dragons with a safety pin - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"
Sail.
Scope.
Screw.
Slat:
A system of seeing through slats - Mary Jo Bang "Sure, It's a Little Game. You, Me, Our Minds"
The strip of light between the slats - Holly Iglesias "I Can Afford Neither the Rain"
Angled slats of aquamarine - Campbell McGrath "Joseph Brodsky in Venice (1981)"
Socket.
Software:
And nirvana comes with a software update - Dana Wall "Customer Service Representative's Nots on Soul Processing" [Strange Horizons 2 June 2025]
Solder:
Your own broken and soldered together heart - Mouna Ammar "Permission"
Soldered in the mind's furnace - Shara McCallum "Penelope"
Spar.
Spoke (noun).
Sprocket:
Tapping and tuning the springs and sprockets - Carl Dennis "Bimini Queen"
Above sprocket-punctured skylines - Yona Harvey "Dark and Lovely After Take-Off (A Future)"
Steerage:
Insidious as rats in steerage - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"
Stud.
Synthetic/Synthesis.
Tackle:
Tying down the wind with rope or chain or tackle - Bruce Boston "Wind People"
Tailpipe:
Hitch-hike on the tailpipe of a car - Duane Ackerson "Little Ghosts"
A bouquet of orchids lifts from its tailpipe - Kaveh Akbar "Orchids Are Sprouting from the Floorboards"
Tank:
The Sensory Deprivation Tanks for Life Resistant Arrivals(tm) - Katie Condon "The Insurance Representative Tells Me How Much the Baby's Delivery Will Cost"
While the passengers sleep in crygenic tanks - Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. "Ice Magic"
Tenon:
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite - Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"
Throttle.
Timber.
Tire [wheel].
Top-Sail:
And the top-sail dripping wine - Herbert Randall "Off"
Turbine:
Money piled up under the turbined lamplight - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"
Vacuum Tubes:
Our dusty vacuum tubes still warm to the pinch of electricity - M. Bartley Seigel "The Mosquito Inn"
Valve:
Shut his rusty valves the tighter - John Greenleaf Whittier "Voyage of the Jettie"
Vane/Weathervane.
Vent.
Weld.
Wheel.
Whirly-Spring:
Some crank in me tightens the whirly-spring - Dean Young "Easy as Falling Down Stairs" [Poetry Nov. 2007]
Widget:
Loving sticks a widget into the machinery of doubt - Mónica Gomery "The End Is the Beginning"
Winch:
On a winch in need of oil - John Masefield "Spunyarn"
Brace the arms that help the winches round - John Masefield "Spunyarn"
Wire.
Wythes:
Bound him with wythes of the willow and fir - George Warwick "Schneider Von Groot's Christmas Dream"
Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.
