b: a vibration of large amplitude in a
mechanical electrical political social personal
behavioral artistic or tribal system caused by
a small stimulus of the same
period as the temporal
vibration it habits
long before the storm
a butterfly flutters its wings
in a primeval forest
the rhetoric of der Führer
inflames the hearts
of a disheartened generation
Robert Zimmerman
hears Woody Guthrie
for the first time
2
a: a quality imparted to sound
by vibration in resonating cavities
the bowl of the chest
the chasm of self
the bent canvas of history
the dark cave of the stars
(there is a mathematical formula
to explain such resonance
in each hemisphere)
b: a quality of richness or variety
in whatever taste one might express
thin apple slices
the nuttiness of an aged Swiss
and a properly chilled
Gewürztraminer
he was working his
way through the
elite of the noir canon
from the savage nights
of Jim Thompson
to the savoir-faire and nonchalance
of Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley
c: the intensification and enriching of a musical tone
by supplementary vibrations
Monk and Coltrane
jazz improv extraordinaire
listening and reflecting
and echoing one another
d: a quality of evoking a response
a rapier’s thrust
a chess move
that topples the evil king
an unexpected kiss
3
the enhancement of an atomic nuclear
or particle reaction or a scattering event
by the excitation of internal motion in its system
Bikini Atoll Fukushima
Three Mile Island
Chernobyl
Hiroshima Nagasaki
death and mutation
of both fauna and flora
4
the sound elicited on the percussion of the chest
from internal or external stimuli
a doctor’s tap
a boxer’s blow
a blob of undigested
gristle or gravy
an electric guitar
5
the way certain senses can conjoin in memory
sight taste scent sound telescoping into
full-blown memories of another sense
the fragrance of geraniums
always evoked a vision
of their garish petals
twined in a chain link fence
from somewhere when
in his migratory youth
her allergic lover’s death throes
on the sun-slashed forest floor
recalled by the distinctive
drone of a wasp in flight.
6
a vague yet sure sense that something
is there you can’t quite apprehend
a matrix for understanding
the scattered debris of the past
the secret
the moon and stars invisible
beyond the neon-plaited
night of Manhattan
Appeared in Resonance Dark and Light (Eldritch Press, 2015), reprinted in The 2016 Rhysling Anthology
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