Voices and Apparitions

7 min.

Poem-song for soprano and fixed multichannel playback. Written for Rosie K.

text by Christopher Douthitt

Omened

Or neume-pierced

Veil, no fossils

Scattered thin across

Sunken fields, nor pitchblende-

Hidden ore, nor greenish glow

In foggy glass; no secret scrawl.

To know would be — weighted terms — to know

Past proving grounds, past atoms split,

But the sure pull of numbers

On the thing, which is there

And not, clear as air,

Unencumbered:

A closed all

Opened

On.

Apparitions in the optic nerve,

Like wreckage on sunlit waters,

Elude the earnest plotters

Of spasmed event: surge

Buckshot through blancmange!

Starlings, converge!

That such traps

Don’t snap,

See

Unfixed

Erratic

Beast-things springing

From any nested whole.

So, sudden data singing:

The floor of frozen faces

Concatenates - no, imbricates! -

Inert input - splash! - a dozen vases.