pitch

(needs a context)

a voice singing

(lacking detail)

the angle of a ship in a storm

(a sudden shift in subject)

also the sealant keeping the ship watertight

(associative leap? note the lines getting longer)

plumb

(musically interesting. slightly comical. return to monosyllable)

peter

( )

featherweight assailant

(recycling related sounds)

the mast snaps

(return to previous subject matter. provocation. still no punctuation.)

(getting distracted by outside activity)

(drifting in thought to subjects already mined ad nauseum. avoidance)

pee-hole

(childish, pseudo-shocking humor)

fellows. gallows. newsprint. counterweight. clouds. possum.

(variation in punctuation. list. “possum” personal code for “possibile,” or “possibility”. a cowardliness.)

flinching.

(like the lion)

a change in tactics.

(wanting to plunge in. not wanting to seem self-indulgent)

pock-marked.

(a golf ball)

,hard as

(combine)

the noun.

(as in)

the farming implement

(giant bales of hay strewn over a clipped field. whizzing by the car windows.)

japan

(as in)

not something exotic. a place with sheep and farms. just like wisconsin.

(revealing biographical information.positing an imaginary socio-cultural stance. trying to appear culturally sensitive and educated.)

(losing concentration. distracted by music)

the smell of dryer sheets and cat piss from the open door

(as in)

the end of the poem

Processing

Gripping buckets of icy water. Toppling a child’s tower of blocks. The fatty flesh around his middle pinched and pressed to the ground. There is a certain amount of splashing. Lungs filled with water. The water alternately brackish and glassy. Not so much an incision as an amputation. Not so much an amputation as a lancing. Not so much a blemish as an abrasion. Blood collecting beneath the skin.

A grapefruit or a lemon, squeezed until there is only pulp. What they call a bark, an empty boat, knocking against the shore. The mud hard and dry. Finally, the parachute does agree to open. The tang squeezing your cheeks. The rush watering the eyes. The sole sweeping the floor for splinters.

A thin robe made of linen. A gas jet spurting flame from the mouth of a charred dragon. Perhaps a roar. Perhaps a soft swishing. Again, the bare foot whisks the cracking floor. A theft. The sound of vellum scraping vellum. Bare legs splintering, and the sun clotting like custard in the sclera.

Please tell someone that this is not a waste of time. Spiders’ legs. A cardboard box. It could even be scrawled. The shadow of a sparrow on scattered twigs.

Maybe it was a theremin, the sound of two lovers never fully agreeing. The neighbor’s dog seemed an unlikely channel, always more like a husky/shepherd mix. The dog always howled when sirens went by, which was often, the police station being just a few blocks away.

There was something in the initial attack that smelled of a brass chuch bell. Attack in the sense of a bow striking a string.

It wasn’t the garbage truck. That zenith having already been peaked and stomped around like a meeting of world leaders, a string full of empty cans dragged behind a car. Every bit of wedding cake eaten.

Not the train, either. While alike in sound objectively, the train’s psychological effect was consistent, and carried with it either an old sleep-softened quilt or a sneaky pinching at one’s elbow. The train is a form of insanity, while this sound was more likely fueled by whiskey. The train is an angry fish, while this sound certainly had hands.

So this was music. His neighbor’s music and it moaned and moaned and moaned. This was not his neighbor moaning, being a skinny white kid from Arizona. Nor the other neighbors. This sound was built to corkscrew itself into the brain of any creature around. Meant to make the stars blink with shame or blush. This sound had hands, and the hands could sandpaper and hadn’t known a blister in decades. This sound had hands, and the hands had certainly gripped a shovel, had buried something that it used to feed.

Not a theremin, it predated even simple electronics.

... 

a – scuffle of feet at 4 am.

b – a chainsaw



a: followed the dotted line?

b: never saw such a thing.

a: parable?

b: no. amnesia.

a: inflamation. murmur. voice.

b: perhaps candles.

a: no. not cinema.

b: perhaps calendars.

a: no. leave off the empty promises.

b: so, the only way to bellow is to upset the tempo?

a: perhaps rumble… yes, a seed.

b: please, no more embezzling.

a: no, not crime. a lasso.

b: frayed.

a: knotted.

b: brittle.

a: dry?

b: sere.

a: that’s stubborn.

b:

a: then i’ll rope something bright in the sky.

b: you can’t hold it and the rope in your hands together.

a: exactly.

b: moths.

a: diamonds.

b: gravity.

a: song.

b: treacle.

a: earwax.

b: safety.

a: insurance?

b: safety.

a: the spoils…

b: … tinsel.

a: paste?

b: precisely.

a: ah, but when the crescendo comes…

b: … by then…

a: … gone to bed?

b: no. well, yes.

a: fine. then, i’m going out with the wind.

b: please don’t.

a: i see.

b: she won’t catch you.

a: won’t have to.

b: inventions.

a: breath.

b: clockwork.

a: no. it wrinkles.