The Unfinished Machine: Poems of Creation, Refusal, and Reinvention

By Ryan Bardyla

Some lives are repaired in public. Others are rebuilt after midnight.

A man is assembled from scraps: a family's designated guilt, a soldier's trained usefulness, a father's refusal to pass the damage forward, and a builder's faith that broken systems can still tell the truth.

The Unfinished Machine moves through childhood homes, military units, government offices, islands, server rooms, failed experiments, and the quiet domestic moments where inheritance can still be interrupted. These poems examine what institutions conceal, why families choose one person to carry their contradictions, and how creation becomes a method of survival.

Written in a voice that joins technical precision with emotional restraint, the collection treats circuits, ledgers, files, uniforms, margins, and machines as instruments for measuring human damage-and for building beyond it.

For readers drawn to contemporary poetry about fatherhood, military service, institutional betrayal, technology, memory, family systems, and reinvention.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HBT259DL
• ISBN13: 9798189454981
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 79 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"