Fall 2014, Volume 17

Poetry by Patrick Williams

Auditory Recognition by General Forms

Our struggle with somnambulism concluded with a little experiment. It was deeply rooted in introspection, and gave us a single suggestion: one should not permit long exposures to sound after sound, to rhythm or harmony. We do not. However, our neighbors (who have passed on) still hover about, partaking somewhat of the nature, the sticks and limbs and leaves. Anchored under an indifferent landscape, their skeletons call forth a theory: perceiving sameness, one conjures only error and stiff illusion.

How Do We Perceive Anything?

I am glad to say it is very difficult. Daylight may fill up the gaps of various experiments with other factors. A skeleton lantern might throw outward a synthesized performance: more theories welded together by practice.  Light always involves the actual innervation of muscles. Excitations of various intensities formed the basis for the total act, but discrepancies in distance, size, and orientation in space are also suggested. Either we shoot better or they signalize better.  The truth will no doubt gradually appear. For the present moment, however, we have undertaken a new trick in the gymnasium. A thing that we do.


 

 

 

BIO: Patrick Williams is a poet and academic librarian living in Central New York. His work appears in publications including The Metric, 3:AM Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, The Mackinac, and Sundog Lit. He is the editor of Really System, a journal of poetry and extensible poetics.