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GLENN BACH Glenn Bach has an M.F.A. in Drawing and Painting, and is also active as a sound artist and curator. The
following poems are excerpted from a longer work-in-progress titled Atlas
Peripatetic. The poems are inspired by an extensive mapping of the sounds on my
morning walk. Excerpts have appeared in journals such as Aught, Chiron
Review, DIAGRAM, hutt, and Shampoo, and will be included in future issues of
Pearl and Softblow. 248 ooh and aah points tantalizing detailed field marks a bird walking a distant shout voice calls out an exclamation! motive rings out distant horns grown rigid and stare rush toward the bank great shout of acclaim depart in glory swan draws away a closer look at none surprise turns scream voice squeeze spear of ice bounds abyss memorabilia of seconds raza obscurity shy person afraid to talk leaving the air with small sounds mutter about the voice in the formal third person moment of free movement in the world youth and heroic continents of weather different inflections practitioner of this strategy of fire of reverberations
211 sing a song sing along to the radio—
a blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare
a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare
a pink trip slip for a three-cent fare a slow pedestrian of the third act the simplest chorus in the world what witchery woven into its construction not black but none too white fit smoothly in the memory of confused minds short-breathed Twain passed jingle-meme to red-faced Mr. ----- and then to a classroom of unsuspecting students
punch, brothers, punch, punch with care,
all in the presence of the passenjare and on their rushing heels came others but the world soon forgets its disquiet
239 a pipe clangs like a bell in the distance a rung bell’s long fadeout reverberations of Sumatra’s earth strike
500 to 600 seconds
100 gigaton bomb
800 mile gash
50 feet of slippage millimeters of vertical motion
sitting in laboratories
watching TV at night a steady signal of the vibrating earth that spins just a little faster
no place escaped our days fractions shorter tilted axis nudged maps and globes now obsolete
the motion of wind blowing through trees
cows in a field
copyright © Glenn Bach |