Daniel Moore


From the Music Space

1 / A VERY PRETTY SYMPHONY

A very pretty symphony played on only the
blue notes
watery streams in between
with enough grandeur to go around and for
everyone to walk around in comfortably
encapsulating and even embodying
the sound that grows between the
grassblades in that furtive vertical space where
bison herds have disappeared between the
greenest sheathes and
angel's faces flash and fade
but float forward in turquoise cloud for just
long enough for the music to be heard

-4/10

 

2 / MUSIC OF THE SMALL SHREDDER

Music of the small shredder
music of the giant turbine mulching logs
music of a spoon hitting the edge of a salad bowl as it serves
these musics that a million birds might make
music of her speech upstairs on the telephone to our son
wisps of airy melodious nothingness of the water heater's pilot light
or the watery flush moving through metal pipes in the house somewhere
distant tunes a few streets away music
undulant airwaves of different decibels but actually at-this-moment
inaudible
music
music of the heart speaking nothing but the truth
awful cacophony of untruths like the social muzak that accompanies us
up elevator down
high clear notes from earth's horizon to the clouds
the behind-all-things visible to the majestic music of the invisible
the ah! waterfalls of sound there unceasingly sonorous gushing
music of the unmanifest real world to which
the tinkles of laughter and sawing of groans in this world are only
echoes just as images of blood and guts and smiling
faces are only faint and fuzzy imaginings compared with the
actual high-pillar'd court and gorgeously rolling green hills and
cliffs of that world which is the true source of
this one we so blindly wander down
attracted by a sound a trumpet a sweet voice
looking for an open door

-4/10

 

3 / O SHARP WIND

O sharp wind
(turning corners ruffling hair)
you've traveled from so far to get here
whipped water into waves enhancing the
work of the deep machinery of churning currents
blown coats equally of diplomats and dipsomaniacs
sculpted the outlines of elephants and ants (who miraculously
hold to the ground till you pass)
your invisible gunshots blowing holes and flinging debris
loosening roofs and rattling windows
chasing hats and newspapers then suddenly
dropping them at the feet of strangers
whistling and warbling singing a single note with
multiple modulations both sound and no sound
yet almost decipherable words formed in
breathy enunciation messages from distant
planetary corners to the bristling cheeks and closing eyes of these
passersby attempting to walk through you
hearing but not heeding your words

-4/12

 

4 / OUT OF A DRIP A WHOLE WORLD

Out of a drip a whole world comes floating into view
like creatures in an aquarium the
glare of the glass blinding us gargantuan and
minute things crawl through the water
whole islands of life ringed by coral reefs and atolls
from a tiny drop no bigger than the tear that's
sliding from your eyes of
grief or gladness the emotional engine that
moves the world into existence from deep
darkness to this curiously visible
remnant of a Paradise too soon wavering to us its
fond memories of pale lagoons and purple
skies its delicacies of sight and sound these
bands of light and waves of distant
mockingbird arias remind us of
the utterance God made to us itself the
flora and fauna of our primordial state
His Words the green ferns whose fronds are the
vegetative lexicon we read to remind us of that
generous spray of drops on our foreheads each
drop of which is in itself a
world

-4/13

 

5 / THE SOUND OF IRON TRAIN WHEELS

The sound of iron train wheels against iron track
squeak and thrum
the famous clack though not as
regular as you'd think
till it gets up to speed
the air-conditioning sound of the
train itself
Septa to Trenton
the sometimes whispering wheels like a subway and
the rocking-back-and-forth-on-springs sound
passing blighted brick and streets going off to the sides
toward what adventures what human worlds
what human ruin and wrack?

-4/16

 

9 / THE LICKING SOUND

The licking sound of a thousand tongues licking
nectar off leaves
the sound of light falling slowly behind mist
nebulous Niagaras in veils of scintillant particles
the sound of distant animal sighing and the even further
sound of antlers clacking in a distant sun-drenched glade
dry ringing sound of bone against bone
melodious as water
the subtle rustling of leaves turning to catch rays of light
the forward rush of time as it flows
majestically through itself gathering
everything in its wake like rows of rowboats
tied to a wharf unable to keep from
bobbing when a liner booms through
the sound of a clear call coming closer past every other sound
the sound of the tiniest hair growing
the sound of eyesight getting dim
turning everything inward to where there is no sound
birds scrambling in a bush
elegance of every precious thing falling slowly or
rising to the surface as if in a flood
the cry turns out to be the world itself
presenting itself to Eternity
and Eternity nods to acknowledge it
and turns everything to pure light
with a soft ticking sound

-4/21

 

13 / EVERY SOUND IN THE COSMOS

Every sound in the cosmos got trapped one day in a
giant glass cube of silence
on a hill of new ferns
as soon as the sound was inside
it started to glow and lit up the whole sky
every bird-chirp harp-pluck bell-ring door-slam
pipe-stem-clench toboggan-swoosh airplane-drone
two-at-a-table outdoor terrace gossip tennis-serve lob-pop
ocean-roar surf-hiss gull-cry sky-boom
even the almost soundless expanse-sound of the sky itself
and the usually inaudible rumble of the earth as it creakily turns
and the faint sighing sound of the moon longing for its
origin somewhere in the Atlantic
and every heartbeat rat-a-tat of every
person on earth walking or sitting or sound asleep
each egg in its quiet hum
each sperm in its anxious and excitable wriggling high-pitched whistle
and silent clouds passed overhead
and silent light bathed the cube in supernal splendor
and for a moment people saw things as they really were
with a vision so complete
you could hear a pin drop

-5/8

 

22 / SMALL ALABASTER PIPETTES

Small alabaster pipettes that emit a tiny
wind sound when blown across their tops
an upper register note particularly apprehended by
dogs when the air stream is more purposefully blown
these were first found in China at the court in the
Forbidden City not part of the
official survey and almost lost forever when mislabeled as
drinking straws
though being so far from the others maintained that
error
until food-focus lost its ubiquity as answer to every
question and motive for every archeological find
so there's the courtly high-pitched whistle from these
delicately carved pipettes
and a small shell-shaped jade item with a similar flute embouchure
opening that also makes a surprisingly deeper
wind sound and that looks like something you'd
find among washed-up debris on the beach
and which even seems to have stored up wild
sounds of sea surf and sky in its tiny molecular sonorities
and then there's an ivory-like box made of some truly
unknown unknowable substance
heavy as lead and seemingly solid but not in
fact though you'd be hard put to see how it's
not when it seems like a paperweight heavy through and through
yet when you lift and tip it even slightly
it makes an eerily beautiful chime-sound but as if from
far away and like distant
tinkly melody
wind-chimes or door-chimes and with numerous
overtones and semi-quavers unusual in any
tone row but exceedingly pleasing to the ear especially when
coupled with the shell and pipette notes to create an
actually full though delicate orchestra of sounds extremely rarified and
uncanny in nature very much like this
poem itself describing them since they really don't even
exist except for a time in this
tuned mesh of words
in which they are almost visible
almost viscerally sensible and smelling of sea-wrack
and almost audible since I've gone to so much trouble

describing what is actually only a
non-existent wraith created out of whole cloth

you can hear their ghostly ensemble now
if you lean forward just a little bit
and imagine as clearly as you can a small herd of horses
so black they're purple
running along a beach at dawn
against a blinding white sea

-5/17/2001