After all - who here doesn't want another U2 masterpiece?
Also - the "magic marker" line is yet another odd commonplace item thrown into a lyric that just seems anti-poetic (in the spirit of...heavy like a truck, high-rises on their backs, ATM machine, force quit, cockatoo, newborn baby's head, tuna fleets, mouthful of teeth, ...and the entire lyric of songs like Boots and Playboy Mansion).
While I agree with you overall, NLOTH, to me, was a brilliant album. NLOTH had some songs that I wish never existed (looking at you, "Crazy Tonight") but the live version of the song rocked. JT and AB, often worshiped, did have flaws. So it is subjective.
While the lyric "ATM machine" is obviously redundant, to say it's not poetic may be inaccurate. It flows with the lyrics and the content of the song. It's like when artists incorrectly state "you and me" or "you and I". Or like when artists try to use "again" as a rhyming word against any "ain" sounding word (like "pain"). It's not perfect, but it flows.
The "heavy as a truck" line gets a lot of abuse. Overlooked are some of the beautiful lyrics:
"You're kept awake dreaming someone else's dream;
Coffee is cold but it'll get you through; Compromise that's nothing new to you."
I especially like the part of the refrain that states,
"You're in my mind all of the time, I know that's not enough."
It seems that some pick one half of a couplet and declare the song the worst thing ever, while ignoring the majestic aspects of the rest of the piece.
With that in mind, the "magic marker" line, while different for Bono, flows with the song.
I think that for so many years, Bono wrote very abstractly. His lyrics were poetic. But how many more "skies", "kneels", etc. can the man use? Instead of abstract, or completely abstract, he is using terms that are more common and colloquial. Nothing wrong with that. Poetry takes on all forms. Is it different for Bono? Yes. But that doesn't make it worse.
