.................................
Dancing to Architecture
.................................

Start.

A 4/4 beat.
The bass a black texta on fibrous paper
soaking in on the 2 and 4, countered by a
tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik that tickles the hairs
on the back of your hand.

Ribcage pounding stands for
six bars,
then is joined by a whale-cicada whistle
leaving a space for flute and keyboard
entwining, on-off, on-off, off-on
and so on.

Bells grow ears to hear themselves.
Steam hisses on the 3
and in the distance
the engine of a '78 model Datsun 200B
fails to turn over.
Bass ink seeps deeper
and flute flirts in and around,
darting between and underneath
a curtain of sound
that parts for the singer.

Music gathers around her ankles,
caresses her hips & elbows.
A melody comes to rest on her wrist.
She considers it, sparkling like a bracelet,
now serious, now cheeky,
now trilling, now humming.

She smiles & frowns.
Her diaphragm shifts upward.
The melody alights from her fingers.
Alveoli expand & breath collects
and as the whale-cicada-flute-bass
drapes over her,
hiding her from direct vision,
she sings.

Words in Gaelic, Binary and Wauthurong.
This is the song.
It is food, air, fire and water.
It is self-extinguishing,
self-perpetuating,
raw & true.
When it happens, you will know.
Before it happens, you will be waiting.
Wait with me. All wisdom is simply that.
Cliches are true and false.
She closes her eyes. The Datsun's engine
turns over and roars into the fore.

The bass acknowledges.
The engine stirs the brew
and the singer retreats behind the curtain.
A pattern is established,
a loop of rhythms and melodies.
Pulsing like steel, muscular like a tree
and delicate as nerve-endings,
it slowly and steadily withdraws from memory,
repeating 'til fade.

You press play and it begins again.

.................................
Adam Ford
.................................

 
April 1998

...4 poems in this room by jenne micale...
Planet Ocean: Dancing to the Fossil Record
Return to Agnieszka's Dowry Welcoming Room