The Bacteriologist At Play: Poems Without Homes

By Adam Savage

Do you even remember what normal thoughts feel like? If not, you have found the book for you. Yes, it is a book. It has pages. The pages have words. Buy the book, and begin committing its words to memory. Within a matter of days, your life will change: People will bend to your will, your body will take on normal proportions once more, money will flood into your bank account like diarrhea, the laws of physics will come off as mere *suggestions*, and you'll find that your new "gift of tongues" allows you to converse with small animals (as well as the microbial world). Your only obligation 'pon completing this book is to communicate its contents to others. Recite it on street corners. Gift it to dads and grads to aid them in this world and the next. Disseminate its gnarled wisdom. Form new religions with this text as the centerpiece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Savage
• Release date: Jan 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463838655

Adam Savage

Adam Savage is a maker, designer, television host, producer, husband, and father. He was the cohost of all 278 hours of MythBusters on the Discovery Channel for fourteen years and host of its 2019 spinoff MythBusters, Jr., as well as several other TV shows. He also makes stuff and tells his sto­ries on his website Tested.com. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, twin boys, and two amazing dogs. Every Tool’s a Hammer is his first book.

Book preview

The Word Game

I have never been to the city

The glass collapsing

The sniveling swiveling merchants

Light in the blood

Lend me your earballs and eyedrums

I'll take you for a walk

Some lurker

In the milky corner

An artist in the wrong venue

Staring into flames

Soon to be gone

Anecdotes from the abyss

Eat a paper sandwich

Take up the word game

And tell me

How it lives –

Good advice

Too bad

I didn't take it

He can crown with nuance

The Anything

But the author of this drama

Has fallen asleep

On a hallucination spree

That sauce

You don't remember

But live a little

It will come back to you

The City is Not a Place

The city is not a place

We are here

It is here

We are it

I see no one in the crowd

Just masks

The cars howl and never crash

The lines so straight

Sleep in

You have time

Until 1980

The bone-chewing air

Rough and about

The self-polluted soul

Of humanity

Dandruff of a former apocalypse

Automatic door

For the automatic life

Automatic love

For the automatic wife

No Plan

No plan

Just go

No plan

Let the city

Send you

Where it will

Pay attention

Listen

To its pulse

and

Try not to think

Ahead

You will miss

the cool calculations

and detailed logistics

of the other days

You may suffer

As you walk through

the mud

and remember that

you didn't comb your hair

or coordinate your clothes

to produce the desired

Effect.

You will find others

in need

Always

Others in need

Your eyes may meet

Your lips may move

You may find some light

And you may try to plan

Once more

No plan

Just go

No plan

Your specialization

Is windows

And there are windows

Everywhere

How about here?

Is this the place?

Have I arrived?

How will I know?

When will the doors open?

The backs of heads

Are all I see

Cleaning

Alterations

Arterioles

Antique mutations

The smooth road

Of constructs

The 26-lettered way

Bar codes

Binary knowledge

Mossed over

By the flowing weeds

Of creation

And you wait for it to appear

But

It is already here

The story found

Under a stranger's shoe

A microbial tale

Neglected

Your bones are rattled

Your hair is blown

When was the last time

When is the next time

Any

time

Any

time

at

all

No plan

Just go

No plan

Unfolding

What will I do

To this future me

Changing his thoughts like wax

Try

And sleep 

These warping ribs

Try to sleep 

People give me distance 

The coyotes bleat

The huggable cancer

A small herd

The dry cold air

Awake and shriveled

The desires of time

She unsheathed her cashmere sweater 

On Ampersand Street

A pound of dust filled the air

A fresh new look

The never-ending paper fugue 

The musty shrapnel

Of my thoughts 

A statistically ugly chance 

The oven's on fire

But you stick with it

It'll stick with you 

The distillate of history 

The Norton