elegy for the record: on the nature of things

 

Elegy for the record: on the nature of things

“Look”, he would say, drawing an imaginary line with his finger., “it’s like this. I start here with the intention of reaching here – in an experiment, say, to increase the speed of the Atlantic cable; but when I have arrived part way in my straight line, I meet with a phenomenon and it leads me off in another direction and develops into a phonograph.” -Edison

 

Was there song before there was song

in the universal throat,

all unwrought dark intensity

all systems ungo,

ungo

ungo?

 

“The very thing of itself declares”

in the needle’s track left on

the deaf man’s thumb.

Hearing is touching is scratching

 

hums in the ear unheard

or unheard light crackling sounds

sinking away in the retired depth

of the abandoned laboratory dark.

 

Lucrèce writes, in his native French:

“Les formes d'un seul choc seraient anéanties.

Mais, de ses éléments variant les accords,

La matière demeure éternelle, et les corps

Durent, cohésions rebelles au divorce,

Jusqu'à ce que l'attaque ait dépassé leur force.

Ainsi, rien ne retourne au néant;

While the headline sez:

 

“A talking machine made by Professor Edison”.

Song before song, throb before throb

Where in the universal throat a single shock

Sings the unsung folded around a needle

 

 Lifting angelic choirs out of available material.

“I took the night job which most oprs

didn’t like, but which I preferred

as it gave me more time to experiment.”

 

I saw it all end, Thomas Edison.

Prophets wearing earpods.

«Oprs» listening to satellite radio

Driving to the night shift on the I-5.

 

But end? End only in this spoonful

Of the universal time-space.

Song there will be unsung and sung

At the end, as at the beginning. Song.