I was invited to contribute “loud music” at a recent May Day fundraiser event at Jupiter’s Eye in Spokane. Here’s what I came up with.
First, I created parameters and a pre-made base to serve as a soundscape. Second, I wrote a poem that I then read atop the manipulated soundscape. The poem was read once in linear fashion, then I cut the printed poem into small piece by hand and re-read the clump of poetry after I had shaken it up a bit.
Performing with the use of the Zoom allowed me to record directly from the synth; however, I learned a lesson: I had not turned on the on-board mic when starting the recording (and performance) and couldn’t turn the mic on mid-recording. Thus, none of the spoken word was captured with the Zoom. It also meant that the echoing and feedback effects (which I was hoping would show up) did not come through.
Fortunately, I did record the entire performance with my phone, allowing me to capture the full live performance. We didn’t sound check the mixing of the audio to the vocals ahead of time, so it’ll be very difficult to hear the first round of spoken word, but the second comes through OK.
The event also included a fundraiser for Manzanita House, which you can donate to as well.
Check out both versions of “The Claws of the Marmots Extend to Repel as the Sighs of the Engines Arrive Resisting and Reaping” here:
And the poem, its tabbing / spacing slightly intact, is here:
The Claws of the Marmots Extend to Repel as the Sighs of the Engines Arrive Resisting and Reaping
Courses of grains and fibers within sun fire.
Lost glances and the way to capture the sparks.
Captured within the cabin and the fir tops rip apart.
I have heard this song before, I have been part of this machine for days.
To a lesser extent, the lesser become gilded.
And the diamonds of their teeth form reflections of new portraits.
And the retaliatory phalanx and its utter heartbeat moving forward.
I have heard this one before, this colliders of column thinking.
And I was born an astral botanist serving up forward momentum.
While the screams within the chain as they pulled and broke
kept us blood eyed awoken through the bleeding of sheets.
And it was careful the way that we moved.
A soft palate in a gentle stream of acidic tendencies.
Pulled over by the wind as it creates new visions and the body is warm.
I heard them speaking with tired tongues and horns
crushed bodies awakened in the capital’s mourns.
So grant me a stupefied breakpoint and the will to collapse.
Granted extraordinary hawkish feathering limbs.
To coast alongside crag and slag with volcanic footprints
and we meet in the creek’s crux like small shivering mammals.
You were just a boom just a shockwave justified left of center
regulatory empowered danger, danger, danger.
The island breaking apart from its owned positionality.
Eliminate the liminal was always the command.
Courses of grains and fibers within sun fire.
What little did ye know as the hills were caught ablaze.
And I know and I know your face is long and shriveled
like the rags that mop the basin where we wash in each other’s blood.
And I know and I hear these crackling skins
keeping the world restless as lightning tears across us.
And our eyes are made of mouths that chew up the palisades.
Wretched is as the towers powder and that scatter is over.
Forgive the chance to occupy and instantaneously be.
Leave your space to create barrel eyes beyond essences of dust.
This is just another culling of couture and exsanguinous nonsense
the marmots rubbing bellies as human claws scrape in protest.
The marmots’ awake and shivering with their claws reaching for scraps.