The Taxonomy of Echoes
The ancient sounds of Greek theaters reach into
the controllable landscapes of music and speech.
The best way to confirm this is with a chirp.
Let it rip like the sparrow outside the window
declaring a state of panic. There’s drama in
the ornamental pear again. This time it’s hard
to see who the culprit is — airborne predator
or visiting playwright from ancient Greece.
Both have their designs on how the daylight
hours may be shaped. Their next chapters
feature bold acoustic statements
(that’s a lot of noise to you and me).
Suddenly, a shout and a whoop in a tunnel
sound off and interrupt what
everyone’s been saying . . . that people
with pull on the purse strings are
a punitive lot. It’s impossible to keep
that news private. There’s simply too much
shouting and nobody willing to collect
the echoes. Around and around they bounce
within the sonic wonderland of
the staircase. I’m two steps up from you,
but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed
to hear me hum or imitate my function
sounds. Beep. Click. Buzz. Kerplop.
Listen as they repeat and assume
their station in the taxonomy of echoes.
The oldest of them goes back to Sophocles
who just now has been invited to
rejoin the living and visit us at
the harmonious writing conference,
tell us how simple it was
to kick the habit of control and
make a practice of going off the leash.
***
Temperament
Ten tones between the two that are multiples
of each other. Choose only eight set apart
at a measured length and you have
a scale, order, progress, a path that leads home.
But use all twelve and each note shakes free.
The pulses drift. Each note is of equal weight,
and they blend their indiscretion into the ear
for a listener to describe them together
as beautiful. But it’s just too strange;
the descriptions fail without further analysis,
without repeat performance
to cement the relationships in the brain.
How did such freedom and equality become
a burr in the fur of the keenly attentive?
Which listener can tilt at the perfect ideal?
The appeal is there for those who relish abstraction;
then suddenly, a new family is moving in
to push the old thought out. There’s no trust
in what seems unstable. It’s easier to have
faith in expression—it comes across better
on television, and there’s a new video
going around with the drama performed by
each distinct species on the earth . . .
all fifteen million of them playing their charades.
The mad predators are advancing on their withering
prey. What kind of lament will be played?
It’s temperament will haunt the air waves
between our homes. It will make the candles
flicker and force its way into the canal of the ear.
It will make the eardrum shudder. It will brave
the loss of the perfect fifth in search of the ideal.
***
Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) The String of Islands (Dink, 2015) and Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, Mad Hatters’ Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban and many other journals in the U.S. He is also editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Alliance. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He plays flutes, guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.
Rabid Oak 