Having finished the alphabet poems, I was going to take a break—but then a line popped into my head this afternoon while I was at the book store. (The ‘refrain’ comes from the title of a Herbie Hancock album I saw at that same book store.) Draw tears— but don’t use shading a visible trail [...]
Tag: sound
One breath, another breath (a poem)
An ekphrastic poem, inspired by Frank Perry’s album Zodiac. Where the stars meet silence I am on guard I am too accustomed to silence One breath Another breath Gongs mark where grains shift before tumbling down glass to strike the drum One breath Another breath The chambers in which we choose to live hold space [...]
I hear a beckoning sound (a poem)
An ekphrastic poem, inspired by Brian Eno’s ‘Discreet Music’. It doesn’t know it yet but it is calling me The voice is far off but as familiar as home the way I used to remember it On this hardest of days when the world has worn me down it makes me feel safe It doesn’t [...]
The futility of words (A poem)
Sometimes I write in the morning… 1 There are no words to express pure emotion feeling untethered to language unbound by sound Yet I keep trying to reduce what I feel to words as though I have to explain to myself how I’m feeling instead of simply feeling 2 Some nights, I try to numb [...]
A meditation on the art of a performance (A poem)
I wrote this earlier this evening while watching the documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present… I am merely here a presence that may or may not go unnoticed Sounds may or may not go unspoken The metronome ticks in an empty room with bare walls Sounds echo back and forth killing time A network of roads connects [...]
The nature of silence (A poem)
I spent yesterday watching Japanese movies checked out from the library. This poem was inspired by クローンは故郷をめざす (The Clone Returns Home)… Silence marks the moment of the separation the border between end and beginning the space where everything changes When the sound comes back it is sudden, deafening the discharge of a hundred atmospheres aflame Into the [...]
The sound of bells (A poem)
At the apartment complex where I live, recorded bells sound every half-hour from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. I wrote this in the morning, before the first bells… It’s too early for the sound of bells Morning has just begun no one is awake to ring them few are up to hear them so they [...]
In a room by the lake towards the end of the day (a poem)
An unusual move for me: I wrote this poem this afternoon, then read it at an open mic three hours later… I heard rattling and footsteps outside a man with a bicycle walked past the window the surface of the lake rippled next to the dock The clock on the wall stood at 11:14 the [...]
Q&A: What is Tinty Music?
On to my musical past… What is Tinty Music? Tinty Music is the name I gave to my musical pursuits, as well as the name under which I released recordings for public consumption from 1994 to 1998. I reissued much of the Tinty Music back catalogue in digital download form in the spring of 2014. [...]
