Monday, February 14, 2011

To A Tape Recorder (editor: a voice recording device)

That damned load
in this case, under porches and eaves
of my skull
listens better.  Sense or not--
fluent words matter in action a well as thoughts;
but the breath scratched on a tape
stammers.
I make a minute none may revise
only erase.  A life halts and stops
to stumble in its own prints: a blue record-
button jams, pushing up the silver "rewind"
and equal "play" jags and creaks, forces to the force of action;
I can make my machine go on without being broken.
                                   Silent, waving ghost
                                           in the [cassette]
                                           is smoke of what could have been written.
                                    I do badly
                                           what may not be contrived
                                            in the pulling back, the twiting around
                                        and find a failure unbroken.
No inging here: the Japanese maker will not allow
much glide, roll-ball of sound.  Here's the lost gamble, uncontrolled and
                                                                  thrown breath
of a passion.
                               You can go
                                           over and over
                                            what I have said
                                     and sound can be substituted for sound, prose
                                                                                            for verse
                                     as if instructed engineering.

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