Friday, September 01, 2006

Soundscapes, the Moon

A recording: DSL/Cable, or Dial-up. Thank you for listening, it's #3 on the charts...

Tonality of the moon. The deep listening to the speaking that is witheld in the voice. What hides in the silence that isn't silent. Where the gasp, retreat, plummeting. Clouds mull over the moon, concealing and unconcealing like broiling smoke. Deep in the smoking mirror I hear voices speaking. Ceaseless speaking without bodies. Speech that speaks us. Calling across craters, without sound. Staccato choruses and turbulent underpinnings. Your laugh, lilt, the sobbing - glottal, utterance, gesture - cicada of love songs, night life rhythms, beats punctuating words weaving the coiling narrative I speak while hearing you speaking your story. Secret writing that is private out loud. The way we untell the great text we live. Under the moonlight, in the looking glass of the lake, in this silent night.

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Note by way of explanation, begging apology: I've been playing with semiotics again, my fingers are sticky with phonemes... and as I ate the vowels and licked the consonants, I got thinking about the speaking subject and realized that that idea precludes a speaking hearer. So I tried to write the hearing hearers vantage who's speaking what the subject's speaking. Ooh la! And beside the lake listening to cicadas on a moonlit night too.

10 comments:

  1. There is something in this that really hooks me. ...the speaking that is withheld in the voice.... Speech that speaks us.... Secret writing that is private out loud. The way we untell the great text we live....

    Oh!

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  2. MB, glad it met with your approval (whew! your comments carry more weight than you probably know). I did add a bit just now, which may or may not work with the original piece. Ya know, a la mode!

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  3. Quelle voix envoutante !
    Je ne comprends pas bien la langue anblaise , mais votre manière d'articuler , le son de la voix ...c'est magique !

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  4. This piece encapsulates what I envy about you Brenda! It is fearless. You give the impression of being unafraid to be who you are. You use language the way you paint. There's an unfetteredness about your writing. This is beautiful.

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  5. Mary is right, fearless. Anyone who can write "my fingers are sticky with phonemes" is a hero of mine.

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  6. Fearless is the word. And so very free. Every time I visit here, I leave with renewed energy.

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  7. Jean, thank you for this beautiful compliment... I can't read French at all and use Google's translation, which gives me some idea :-) Your photographs...c'est magique!

    Mary, what a stunning thing to say. But that's you, in your quiet and unassuming way with your brilliances. I'd never call myself fearless, but yes perhaps I can see what you mean in the writing and I thank you for this beautiful response. Let us go fearlessly on with our lives...

    Narrator, let's invent phoneme ice cream - and become famous for our special secret recipe flavours of vowels and consonants!

    Patry, what a beautiful, uplifting thing to say! Let me return the compliment... you are a true wordsmith and when I read you I leave feeling writing is forged in light.

    I'm also happy to say that this recording has now made it to #3 on SoundClick's poetry charts. Before Ecdysis, I usually made #4; it's nice to see these little readings that I work so hard at moving up a notch. Many thanks to you all for helping that happen.

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  8. Delightful. And wonderfully performed -- dance of words and sound.

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  9. e_journeys, many thanks my dear friend, you are so sweet to read so many posts and leave so many comments, and I am most grateful to hear that the recording is not only playable but worked on some level for you. The monotone reading style in poetry never appealed to me, some drama or something approaching song please - some passion moving under the words! But one doesn't want overdone either.

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  10. Phoneme ice cream!! Brenda!!

    Read this poem!

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