Night Orchestra

Penn Kemp
From:   On Our Own Spoke. CD-ROM. Toronto: Pendas Productions, 2000.

Deep in summer
stillness, an electric
hum of air conditioner
in B flat flat monotone
entrains my body
              monotonous.

Heat produced to cool
my neighbours thrums
the outside air, heats
up our collective night.

Mechanical multitudes
self-replicate in chorus,
relentless fridge and clock.

The only spell breaker
is a tape of Tibetan chant.
Deep harmonic overtones
conjure a resonance,
disturb the sine waves.

Sleepless in the Beaches,
I resist the single sound
as Blake deplores single
vision and Newton's sleep.

The sound of the perpetual
twentieth century
colonizing our future
with a dominant beat, sales
pitched for comfort, con-
venience, reliance on
appliance.

The pity is not
that the century
is winding to a close but
that it's whining
on and on

Somewhere beyond
the pervasive rattle,
waves break on the shore.
Species diversify.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5

Penn Kemp's works copyright © to the author.