Dan Beachy-Quick – Twittering Machine

Dan Beachy-Quick

Twittering Machine

I see I must rewire the Twittering Machine Whose song was lightning                                           when lightning-struck— And then sang singe, sang smoke: elect -ric elegy, perpetual elegy, the fuse That fused syllable to                                  sound is blown, is Blown, and now the dry-throat on noting Nothing drowns. The gold-sheathed wire Soldered to star                           sang both the star ’s celestial thread that fretting through The night kept the night a needle-width Undone, and sang                             yellow the yellow Thread unmending the sundress wife kept In closet December-long. And longer: Through darker months                                     none could name, none Name—since, ever since, that star whose light Powered the Twittering Machine’s ever-song Died, was always dead,                                      though nightly seen, Is still seen, cold but brilliant overhead. The gold -sheathed wire withered, tangent to the moon. Now a fungal-wire aches                                       down cemeteries To find a decaying song. Earth-battery— It winds the dynamo by a ceaseless, clock- Work turn, clock-                             wise turn, But the Twittering Machine refuses song. No, no—not refuse, not refuse. We’ve rewired The mechanism. Stars                                    are silent, trustless: They lock the dark vault they seem to pierce. Music of the spheres? buzz, no test-pattern, Program cancelled, shut.                                       Now one dark talon Sheathed in darkness drops unseen from sky And scratches the earth as the earth turns. Do you hear that sound                                      of gravel on gravel Grinding? That music is our music now.

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