Brackish Music

Birds
when emptied out or flattened
(if they are lucky enough to realize it)
release their souls
into cable car throats.

This city is lining its wiry mouth with feathers
as the cables laugh a sharp triangular laughter.
With fibers interlocking
her quicksilver voice uncurls.

Brackish music peaks
that's when the torsion might spark
then fizzle out
like a ghost in a light bulb.

Music Machine

On the page the paper breath cracks:
swooping glyphs open their black eyes
and yawn a linear series of numbered sounds.
The grid weaves away
a shaking topography of compressed breath and screaming strings.
Formulas shiver into listening
splitting twilight into sunrise.
Notes both sharp and long
punctuate and scale the blueprints
of a time machine looking to be made through the power of sound.


(a magpie poem)