The Museum of Disappearing Sounds

by Zoë Skoulding

Overview

The disappearing sounds of Zoë Skoulding's new collection may be either in the rich sonic environments that the poems observe, or in the resonance of words themselves, which exist in traces of speech and breath. Exploratory and alive to thesenses, The Museum of Disappearing Sounds creates new perspectives on language and the world in which it exists. 'Zoë Skoulding embarks on a profound orphic journey - one which asks you to travel through the traffic, to listen and look again. This is a poetry that tunes itself brilliantly through tensions out in the world and between bodies, precisely rung in its gaps and inscriptions. Words and sounds "shaken loose from border controls" are discovered in forgotten rooms, on the point of disappearance. Strange dust in the throat. A haunted and beautiful collection, which brings a reader's skin into contact, despite the desertion of language and its museums, with the continual necessity of song.' Carol Watts

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781720738
Publisher:	Seren
Publication date:	02/22/2016
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	72
File size:	348 KB

About the Author

Zoë Skoulding is the author of the poetry collections The Mirror Trade and Remains of a Future City. She is a senior lecturer in the School of English at Bangor University and an editor of the international quarterly Poetry Wales.

Read an Excerpt

The Museum of Disappearing Sounds

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By Zoë Skoulding

Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Copyright © 2013 Zoë Skoulding
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78172-073-8

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CHAPTER 1

    The Museum for Disappearing Sounds

    exhibit 1

    in breath a crackle of static
    disturbance
      a detuned radio in one lung

    drones erase one other
      electricity sings in D
    tyres slur across the street

    a shoreline just out of sight
        at the base of the skull

      exhibit 2

    you hold the rise
    and decay in its arc
        before dispersal
    in wind on the microphone

    cough in wave forms
    count the layers

    but when the light goes quiet
    you sleep under air
        roaring
    through the tunnel of your throat

      exhibit 3
    today I'm dripping into forests
        far into sleep
    where you can't find me
    cannot catalogue the rustle of larch
    unpick
      pixel by pixel
    the stones under my feet

      exhibit 4

    in thin vibrations of the phone
    a voice shimmers on the end of a line

    while outside
        ring dove calls
    slip over branches into memory

    breath hops and starts
      is this is this is this is this is this
    I vanish in lossy compression

    birds listen
        come in and drop out

    the rhythms that cradle us
    turn to an I-you stammer of ringtones
    on the nervous system's high whine

      exhibit 5

    in a frame of silence
        the spectrum
    shivers into transmission

    in a forest of black and white
    off-channel branches
    interlace over water dark
      and interrupted light

    the moon is close closer
    or retreating
    behind the traffic far off

        coming and going
    accelerates to slow-mo as rhythm
    turns to pitch and sinks to drone


    Gwydyr Forest

    through white trees nothing said
      the edges grow sharper the hills
        farther away with each degree

    below freezing under feathered
      water landscapes turn to vapour
        in our mouths clouding the route

    you test the surface by stamping this weight of
      our bodies enough to live by measure
        an echo from one side of the lake to

    another in summer there are dragonflies
      now heat is something I can't even
        remember we call back to our

    outlines scuttle stones across the water
      stacked in lattices of molecules we
        reassemble contact held to breaking

    I can do more dangerous things
      just with my eyes or crack the ground
        without even trying we fall

    over moss tundra scale shrinks
      to skin print claw track in ice
        that up to this point holds


    The Man in the Moone

    1.

    it's always night before the words and in this
    silence something startles out of nowhere
    crashes into earth with no-one to look back

    or say what a body was before and what has
    changed in it as fingernails crescent into moons
    to shadow month by turning month

    or what is the name of this silence all steely
    reflection still waning where the moon
    slips away under cover of detectable traces

    what it looks like from here is all I can tell you
    now it's all push and pull all yes no maybe
    all credit and loss all of it passing through

    the others I am speaking I am walking I am
    eating I am sleeping I am writing only I
    could have written this only you will read it

    2.

    the future was invented with its tense
    a shadow falling where our atmospheres are
    breath on windows sun scoring lines into skin

    a sentence reverses itself between two
    pairs of eyes discovering a distance suddenly
    exposed in words that run on without stopping

    for you to be anything without them
    the timbre of the body half
    sound half weight as if between us thought were pressure

    distributed in music the tension of a
    single note everywhere between breaths
    holding inside it weight and distance in

    gravity as tightrope stutter they row
    themselves through air with giant fans and
    utter their minds by tunes without words

    3.

    since the impact event you've carried
    strange dust in your throat farther and
    farther away the saying and not

    being able to the being and saying and not
    knowing how to at the limits of a tongue
    lost in orbit circling and circling

    and burning up starry Laika out there
    somewhere as dog dust cold wars racing
    through the politics of dream space

    it is exactly this far and no farther
    the moon eclipsed by the idea of moon
    cut out and leaning through the night

    a blue that eats away at stones the sky
    heavy with it in the distance drifted by a
    word shaken loose from border controls


    Inventory

    tape recorder

    reel to reel beginning with
    your own voice returning unlike
    itself heavier and
    thicker in rustles and clicks
    of words outside the head where
    a life may be erased with
    its own sound replaying in
    another room relatives
    freeze up in the occasion
    addressing a future that
    doesn't know them or a child
    close to mic go on it's like
    a telephone but it won't
    say anything back hello


    colander

    cauliflower florets shake
    a hollow rattle under
    cold water in a sixties
    sink raw stalks in the garden
    snails and broken glass a drowned
    wasp in a turquoise tumbler
    drags up a day that hasn't
    been invented yet leaking
    into steam spaghetti strands
    crab apples with shreds of leaf
    mould stuck to them blue plastic
    faded and brownish through so
    much forgetting so many
    kitchens so much water rinsed


    morris traveller

    sunburned legs ripped unstuck from
    vinyl seats j-reg in the
    democracy of travel
    50mph shudders
    through oil price hikes and hedgerows
    looming foxgloves goats thudding
    in the boot straw trailing down
    empty lanes futures mushroom
    in the wooden window trim
    blades of grass and unseen things
    first lesson on the airfield
    jolts between slabs of concrete
    a journey elsewhere at the
    same time or squeal of wrong gear


    cellar door

    asbestos-backed and thudding
    shut on dust it is cold and
    it is war or there will be
    we project and survive with
    water canisters for when
    the dark will shelter us the
    beauty of a word no guard
    against the radiant air
    for now it's just the work bench
    cleaning shoes and skinning hares
    in linear time the rasp
    in his chest invisible
    particles fall from the sound
    of a door shut beyond words


    singer sewing machine

    the hum before the needle
    falls or stops snagged on cotton
    as the singing starts around
    the edges of hems almost
    hanging straight but for hidden
    glitches every garment an
    argument with itself cut
    to a pattern but falling
    short I wear my own failures
    hope on my sleeve the tissue
    paper crackles between its
    pins over the outline chalked
    in a shape cut out of then
    by scissors that never stop


    enamel casserole

    clatter of a lid on blue
    and white enamel inside
    there's mackerel a small catch
    mushroom onion tomato
    a child picking endlessly
    over the bones brought back from
    far out at sea thrashing in
    a bucket something alive
    catches in the throat after
    hours of wind on skin its rush
    on the ear diminishing
    voices on the shoreline where
    the past turns on the tongue and
    its chewable emptiness


    piano

    how to sustain the dark tone
    echoing through timber from
    pentatonic forests scored
    on snow the disappearance
    of each sound giving way to
    another further inside
    the jangled tantrum of wild
    keys that open nothing as
    pedals thump on felted wood
    in the present historic
    every string resonates with
    a coating of light rust tuned
    to a future already
    answering its own movement


    television

    disturbance in the room a
    shallow voice takes soundings from
    the corner in black and white
    treble and hiss insistent
    high pitched whine behind the words
    bleaching to zero this is
    where history flutters under
    our eyelids in sleeping screens
    events take place or take the
    place of events in the air
    surrounding us video
    killed the radio the stars
    are humming quietly in
    skies that haven't reached us yet


    Ô

    while tones of planets descend
    in scales as if thought were pitch
    not picture but single note

    while in the river's light spots
    a train passing overhead
    still in the rush of brakes you

    while with tightening of the throat
    air passes through zero cries
    circumflex and gutteral

    while the moon's full of lost things
    migrating birds unanswered
    prayers keys emails of the dead

    while re-engraved with its own
    watered silk grainy surface
    footage close up then far off

    while a body talking to
    itself blood and nerves as sleep
    rises through ears and water

    while two heads crossed in the glass
    a train passing from one ear
    to another right to left

    while this story's full of holes
    in the edges of the space
    you filled very slowly I


    Variants on a Polish Fragment

    after Julia Fiedorczuk

    this is glass this is szkla or szklo depending on where
    it catches the light and I can't see anything through it
    only hear the rasp of broken bottles
    swept across a beach where I'm walking
    towards you with bare feet in this variant
    salt air wears the edges smooth

    words are sharp against the town's low roar
    but blur your ears and traffic turns tidal every step
    leaves a white wave of salt on my shoes
    in wody wielkie in vast waters I could
    drown in the undertow of any language
    in this variant it would make no difference

    if green's as green as zielen I am walking through it
    scent of cut grass on the rubbish tip
    overhang of leaves dripping on the pavement
    in this variant I'm spit and shadow ticking inches
    over earth's impossible face this is how close I am
    when shades of meaning grow luminous
    in this variant I'm split in glass with one face

    to the street and one tilted into planes where colours
    fold back in silence the smell of rain
    vanishes in the future there is no drizzle only
    specks of scattered shine across a lens
    in this variant you can't hear me coming


    it's a city that asks questions, gives no answers

    after Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir

    we may still cry in taxis
      though behind the window
    it's not winter the electricity
      grids are humming
    there has never been a word
      for crossfire in this language
    shuffle the deck which one
      will you choose how will you
    construct a house of cards
      so the stones won't fall
    below the currency the city
      has thirteen hearts and none of them
    is beating the circulation
      gone you play your hand
    in this uncertain state
      it was not a heart attack
    when he fell his ear
      pressed to the ground for
    six-month-old information
      or digital toxic waste
    grassed over the carbon cost
      of data cold enough to handle
    she signs five times to say yes
      this is the whole truth all of it


    In Search of Lost Time

    I

    After you've lost, searched, and come up empty,
    you move on. For a long time I used to go to bed early
    but the system clock is not accurate. You have
    two options: one is to install timesynch software
    but that won't hold for very long, so why not work on
    punctuality yourself? I replaced the battery and that
    seemed to do the trick. In all this gorgeous atmosphere
    I dress in black every day, adding new features
    where possible. Imagine having permanent jet lag
    when legal professionals capture elusive billable time,
    such as that spent giving reasons and dates, plus
    sunrise and sunset in several hundred cities.


    II

    In real-time station departure I am unsuccessful in
    retaining possession of the number of days, which do not
    include the day of injury or day of return. No earlier
    geared mechanism of any sort has ever been found:
    it's always under construction, always under the burden
    of unreliable data, but countdown clocks would show
    how long this misery could last. A China lost in time
    due to migraine symptoms swallows hours and hours.
    Who can you turn to when times are flying out of joint?
    Playing catch-up, she's fully engaged and ready to lead
    the archaeological expedition that disappears and reawakens
    elsewhere, the system behaving well during a finite period.


    III

    He would suddenly become aware that he could not
    remember even time-lapse cameras recording glaciers.
    A reasonable attempt will be made to replace time lost
    but there is no magic form. Ask your doctor to complete
    a press release pertaining to cloud estimates after earthquakes.
    How can one hold joy and grief in the mind at the same time?
    Blame advertising slowdown, or the growing literature
    on the economics of migraine. Little is known about
    why subjective time loss occurs after a novel experience
    but mice allowed to sleep after being trained help you
    shed flab in a jiffy. Between accident and absence
    the world had changed into something unrecognizable.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Museum of Disappearing Sounds by Zoë Skoulding. Copyright © 2013 Zoë Skoulding. Excerpted by permission of Poetry Wales Press Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

The Museum for Disappearing Sounds,
Gwydyr Forest,
The Man in the Moone,
Inventory,
tape recorder,
colander,
morris traveller,
cellar door,
singer sewing machine,
enamel casserole,
piano,
television,
Ô,
Variants on a Polish Fragment,
it's a city that asks questions, gives no answers,
In Search of Lost Time,
Wingprint,
Orion,
Ex Situ,
From Here: I-XII,
Gropers,
History,
Thermophile,
Count Down,
Easy Listening,
Metamorphic,
Baudelaire,
Valéry,
Rimbaud,
The Rooms,
Room 321,
Room 201,
Room 117,
Room 401,
Room 204,
Room 207,
Room 221,
Room 35,
Room 206,
Room 25,
Room 4036,
Room 127,
Room 302,
Room 131,
Notes,
Acknowledgement,