( ) // Signal:
Begin with a scene
of a faded colonial signal
—road sign, farm fence, fuzzy
radio broadcast, oxidised inscription.
How does this signal connect you to the past?
What phantom dispatches does it relay
—impossible testimony—what orders make
flesh reverb // are they written?
Exhumation in brown // red:
Imagine the process
of uncovering something buried – a dull
object, the sheet music for
Leichhardt’s Grave,
a cardboard box’s humid secrets,
a life spent under a foreign flag,
a symphony of unease in a minor key.
What secrets are unearthed?
Nathan's score:
Composition veil,
silk drapes the open wound.
How does the distorted signal or unearthed artifact connect to your experiences?
Static bronze:
Describe a symbol of colonialism
through a distorted lens
—a front yard seen through a flyscreen door,
the moving city
behind train window scratches,
or a bronze caricature
a puddle of stagnant water.
How does colonialism distort history?
Ghosts in the brass:
Imagine you can hear
the Overland crackle with
indecipherable pronouncements an occasional
metallic sound.
Draw these past messages.
A series of wavy lines across the page
indicate tremolo.
Frenetic squiggly lines indicate disdain
circular shapes with jagged edges
throughout an ancestor’s hoarse contempt.
Eat into the hum:
Metallic tomb stirs a flicker of recognition
// elder's rheumy eyes.
What did that curlew call for last night:
haunting reminder.
Do you consider yourself
a citizen, a captive, something else
// what does this matter?
Hauntlike:
Evoke a sense of the past lingering in the present.
How do the echoes of Leichhardt haunt the speaker?
New signal (maybe):
The final chord
hangs in the air,
unresolved. A distorted sliver
of ( ) cuts the gloom,
a tentative first note
of a new composition.
Imagine a scene
where the unearthed
music is being played.
New.
How does it sound
different in the present?
Coda I // Shoplifting on stolen land // Crinkly song
foil carapace // supermarket’s metallic womb //
beep ( silence ) // antennae twitch – profit? //
or cold kiss? // aluminium wrinkle dissent //
a snag in the smooth // a pocket full of rent //
beneath the shiny things // a truth won't back down //
Coda II // Cockroach // secret passage // crumb // what the fridge hums** //
the tracks designate
the physical path of the cockroach,
while the bracketed emptiness
signifies the mystery of its excursion.
**What the fridge hums
references the prompt's distorted text and invents a question
about the cockroach's perception of
the environment.
Coda III // Say: *Dddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbddbdbd*