Temple of Artemis at Roman ruin of Jerash, Jordan by Anna Montgomery
Morphing Electroacoustic Transducer – spoken word poem please listen by clicking
She’s a whirling shape-shifting actuator
knowing energy is neither created nor destroyed
only transformed, simply trans located through space
Generating thought is a form of energy
within a microelectromechanical system
that uses wet etching nanotechnology
in a lexicology and semantics twinning
Scrolling legged immense lexicography
induce perfectly isotropic etches which produce round sidewalls,
slippery micro slopes of meaning
Smooth surfaces on aluminum discs
positing thought invents language
Backend processing removes pesky micro cracks in her theory
dramatically increasing its resistance to breaking
Tactile and cognitive flexibility
though any transformation leads to a loss in translation
Morphing electroacoustic transducer interrupts echolocation
disorienting signifier from its denotata
within patterns of semantic relationships well, anything could happen
Transmogrified thermoelectric conductor heating
as auditory hallucinations clarify the idea
that speech acts like a convoluted telekinesis
Platinum resistance thermometer in a four-wire Kelvin configuration
results in full cancellation of spurious effects, allaying the static
She’ll draw you a picture:
forces change her world she’s as sensitive as a chameleonic electrochemical detector
Hydrogen sensor, a palladium coated micro mirror
measuring the changes in the back reflected light
shining in a metaphysical quandary of interpersonal dynamics
Morphological, phonological, and contextual behavior all conspire
as thought changes language causing others to respond, philia, neikos, affinity
Internal energy obeys the first law of thermodynamics
conservation of energy denies the perpetual motion machine
Entwining within the physics of proximity, the psychology of proxemics
garnering cries of ethical impunity while meaning and intent magnetically attract
implying perhaps there’s imperative, initiation behind all this energetic interaction
10,000 year old Two Headed Goddess @ Jordan Archaelogical Museum in Amman by Anna Montgomery
Chromapoetica 
dang…some really nice quick rhyme in this…def spoken word…yes thoughts are energy and we transmitthem evenwhen not speaking but this one rips fine vocally down ‘micro slopes of meaning’…some fun lines in here…me likes….
Thanks Brian, for the great hosting and laugh with your pirate poem!
Lots of great phrases and flashes–“a palladium coated micro mirror/ measuring the changes in the back reflected light” and “auditory hallucinations clarify the idea / that speech acts like a convoluted telekinesis” and I love the simple line ‘well, anything could happen” slipped in amidst the blueprint-like matrix of the stanza. The poem is tied up neatly and effectively in the last stanza making a perfect circle of your energy to compose transformed to mine to (hopefully) absorb.
Thanks Joy, I considered notes and then ran out of time. I am entirely too busy lately! Glad the end worked.
you know i’ve been at the physics university in basle and got some input in nanotechnology…a fascinating topic…so i saw everything you wrote just right before my eyes…and you’ve taken it further and further…wonderful write anna
Oh, I’m so happy to hear that Claudia. I went back and forth whether or not to mix transducers and physics together with semantics and lexicology but in the end I couldn’t resist.
‘Generating thought is a form of energy’ ‘She’s a whirling shape-shifting actuator’ ..this is such an amazing poem Anna…. ‘She’ll draw you a picture: forces change her world she’s as sensitive as a chameleonic electrochemical detector’ ..wonderful.. the strands, her life, her knowledge, her experience, her gifts becoming a new circular DNA…
(p.s I replied to your comment on my blog)
I loved your poem tonight, thank you so much for visiting me and taking the time to really engage the work.
Even I learned a thing with this piece, great job delving into the nanite and really brought the effects and focus of it to light.
Wow, I hope that you enjoy learning (seems likely :)).
What a fabulous piece for intricacy and for its crafting. All of the complex sciences put into prose, its so very clever. Amazed.
Thanks, I’m so glad you appreciated the science (it’s my twinning, art and science)!
My husband said the entire universe is simply a related set of zeros and ones, it’s all off/on switches. We see as we’re programmed to see by the computer that is our brain–it’s translating energy. I think you’ve tapped into that understanding here. G.
Hmmm, I’ll have to give that some thought, a series of gates that are either open or closed. Thanks Gay!
ya think? sometimes i have to wonder if it isn’t all just some sort of randomly firing tesla coil.
Oh, I believe in randomness and chaos, I hear you.
(ummmmm,,,,, yeah, what she said…….) Anna, it’s not you, it’s me…. I don’t understand all that scientific/electronic jargon…… I saw Claudia’s comment and it looks like she might understand this stuff…. But even though I don’t understand it, I listened to your voice reading it and that was beautiful…..
Was it me or did you intend for this to be parallel to social interaction? The very last line is what brought me to that conclusion, and if that was it then this is brilliant, because if physics proves the conservation of energy then you spent a whole bunch of it scientifically deducing what you arrived at n that last line! Of course if I’m wrong then don’t take it to heart because you know what? I didn’t really get Einstein’s theory of relativity either. Oh sure, I tell people I did. But naw, not really, went right over my noggin that one did…. But very pleasant Anna!
Thanks John, I did set up the poem to use science and metaphor to prove a point about the nature of thought, ethics, and interpersonal relationships. Sometimes I provide notes and other times I don’t – I’m still learning what works best. I’m so glad you listened to the recording because the piece is incomplete without it. It is intended to be performed.
well crafted anna – i think some of the slim line sentences shine thru the mass of amazing details in fine equipoise – this balance of complex and commonality must be every poets aim in their respective styles – for accessabilites sake at least – a tour de force
Thanks, I forgot to say below, tour de force made my day.
I’m not going to lie. Sometimes I get lost in a few of the words and phrases you bring us, lol, but I always enjoy what you do here. You stretch my brain as I strain to grasp it all. I could definitely understand this,
“She’ll draw you a picture:
forces change her world she’s as sensitive as a chameleonic electrochemical detector”
🙂
Thanks Lori! Yeah, that line was a lot about me :).
thats me above bar 1 – wordpress is playin tricks
That explains why it required moderation; usually your comments just post since you’ve visited before. Thank you very much for the feedback, I’m just now wondering if I really should have taken the time to post notes and debating explaining it all to another reader. I’m beginning to see your point about ignoring expatiation. Oh wait, I already grumbled about this on Brutality Between the Lines :). One of these days I’ll decide one way or another – notes or no notes.
keep going in this direction – it works – the title is V. strong –
feeling the movement in your words
Thanks, I’m glad I acheived a flow, I reworked it a few times to smooth that out.
a wonderful write, Anna.
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say.
Really appreciate your work. You always use a brilliance in your choosing of words, not only for their sounds, and perhaps rarities, but how they fit the piece itself. I love how everything flows so well here and it really is a wonderful piece. I listened to your spoken word as well and think you did a great job there as well. Many of these words are not easy, and you made them flow so effortlessly. Thanks for both the read and the listen. Happy Open Link Night
Thank you, I look forward to reading your poem and I really appreciate the listen. Happy Open Link Night to you too.
This is fabulous and brought to light some very interesting and so well done. You really get me thinking on this one and so happy that I read it
http://gatelesspassage.com/2011/09/20/the-fait-of-our-lands/
Always happy to stimulate thought, I’ll be over to read your poem soon. Thank you!
I realize this is the poem you wanted to showcase tonight but I am not qualified to comment. I was never good at science and if I were to translate all the words that I am unfamiliar with, I would spend the night with the dictionary. Instead of blowing fluff your way, I will trot over to another of your poems, if that is okay with you. Honesty is best, right?
Beth
Absolutely, how kind of you to read another poem!
excellent work, Anna. You write above the bar always 🙂
Sheila, you sure know how to put a smile on my face. I loved your turtle wisdom poem.
the poem feels like falling. but there are all kinds of proximity, all kinds of energy, i can’t see the world as zeros and ones. i can relate to drawing a picture. =) but again that is an abstraction. perhaps your goddess is a female janus seeing the past and facing forwards with some kind of faith, hope, wonder.
Or she’s Hecate with three faces to see in more directions :). Don’t worry; this poem (at least for me) is not about ones and zeros in some ultimate explanation of being. It’s about language, thought (poetics), ethics, interrelationships, and the transformation of energy.
The balance here between poetry and its science is well-wrought here, offering both ignition and cognition (which is a book on fire), getting down the finest filaments of the poetic, a brush-stroke really of “wet etching nanotechnology.” I liked too the image of the poeta as
a whirling shape-shifting actuator
knowing energy is neither created nor destroyed
only transformed, simply trans located through space
Carriers of fire, singing in the language of burning angels with their wings of dark matter …
Fine poem. – Brendan
Thanks Brendan, I marveled at your poem but found I didn’t have words; it felt too personal for a comment, as if I’d be rating your life if that makes any sense. Here I appreciate your close reading and attention, especially the understanding of the point of using transducers, getting to the ‘finest filaments of the poetic’, a brushstroke. ‘Ignition and cognition’ is a deeply valued compliment, thank you.
Really like the line “micro slopes of meaning…” and the juxtaposition of the jargon with the ancient images– that to me in itself says a lot about way thoughts and words bridge all disciplines and time.s an impressive tour de force.
Thank you Siubhan, I like what you’ve said about the bridges, I see that too.
First off, I’ve never seen a picture of that 2-headed goddess before, THAT is cool. Unfortunately I’m so ignorant in the sciences that I can hardly begin to appreciate the humor in this poem, but I do appreciate it. Brian wrote about touching and you write about connectedness in a very original way. It’s just my dumb luck that I wrote about a failure to communicate this week.
Yes, that tiny archeological museum was a treasure trove covering 10,000+ years of history in the Fertile Crescent. Roman glass, greek statue fragments, Egyptian gold, part of the dead sea scrolls, two-headed goddess and no light or flash photography (so most of the pictures, probably appropriately, are blurred). I’m so glad you saw the connectedness and humor. I look forward to reading your poem.
You seem to posit a mechanistic solipsistic polysyllabic universe as one of the possibles. In so doing you are hermeneutically the Source, the Creator. In the beginning was the Word, and Word creates everything. A wave is a wave until Consciousness turns to look. Then it is a particle, located in chronology and dimension. But you have moved me to digress.
Thanks for all the delights of this poem!
Your welcome Charles, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you that I am positing a mechanistic solipsistic universe. The machines here are only metaphoric, I do not believe in a mechanical basis for life. Also, nowhere here is solipsism (there is no I or Creator referenced only a she who is functioning as actor to make an entirely different point). Also, I am not sure if I can believe in consciousness after modern philosophy’s critique of the concept.
Here’s where I am going and you can decide whether I led you down the rabbit hole you took. Thought is a form of energy that can be transmuted into language. This energy, like all energy loses something in translation. You could imagine some of it released as heat if that helps. Once this energy is transformed it can ‘act’ in the world. Sometime this ‘action’ creates a reaction from another person (hence it is impossible that I’m arguing for solipsism, a philosophy I despise). Also, most of the poem is about communication and identification; in a solipsistic viewpoint communication has no role. Who is there to communicate with?
This response from another can be interpreted many ways, one of which is the joke about telekinesis. This thought therefor may be seen in the continuum of action, having the ability to shape the world. If so, then cries of ethical impunity for thoughts fall apart. Now, some thoughts are never communicated so you could argue those are immune from the moral sphere. However, I’m talking about the energy that initiates with thought, that is bound up in communication through semantics and lexicology, i.e. that means something to the other human it acts upon. This is the beginning of an argument I’m formulating:
What is the relationship of moral actions to the thought shadows that prefigure them? May we see an inner progression toward just thought, love, or clarity as moral action even though it may not satisfy the existentialist/behaviorist criteria of observed, validated activity? Do our private thoughts have moral consequences? Does our inner life matter ethically, circumscribing it within the moral sphere?
If you read this and have the time I’d love to know where the solipsism came in for you, I certainly want to rephrase that area to make this clearer. It’s important to me because the foundation of this argument (especially with the introduction of proxemics) is interrelationship, not independence (the only option in solipsism because no one else ‘exists’). Thank you for your thoughts and input.
Sorry. Was trying to read all, and so seemed to have rushed through this and mis understood.
I also failed to say, I fear, that I thought this poem to be a wonderful ride!
I tend to write with language not so elevated, so I was both confused and wowed, it seems…
Glad that’s all cleared up :), sorry if my philosophical rant was a bit long but I wanted to better understand where you were coming from. Thank you for responding.
wow Anna, powerful journey through mind here…loved this phrasing “though any transformation leads to a loss in translation”…something to ponder for sure.
Thank you Laura, I look forward to reading your poem.
is art science? Or science art? I don’ t think we can really have one without the other, as you always beautifully demonstrate, Anna.
I LOVE science!! And I LOVE art!! You are after my own heart, Girl!! Never a metaphysical quandary in your amazing words.
Thank you Jannie! Awesome comment and encouragement, really, thank you!