Synthesizer by Lori Anderson Moseman | Really System: Issue Eleven

Synthesizer

Lori Anderson Moseman

twisting knobs of a old school synth
it’s all he ever wanted: [finger thumb | turn]

what he can’t do on his wooden flute
[finger half over a hole | place pressure lift]

he could talk DNA knots if he wanted
he could talk current codes [0-1-0-1-0]

he could hatch himself a MAX patch^MSP
[we’ve paid for password protection]

but he’s twisting knobs of a synth
his own circuits chemically off [zip zap]

synapse firing too thin too rich for chatter
so he’s twisting knobs: [finger thumb | turn]

his embouchure hollows: one more tooth
gone missing little hammer in his ear rusty

so we give him a very long hallway [narrow]
we give him a bucket, paint and brush [yellow]

his gestures get grand: pigment thrown
his score a full fluid grip [pressure lift]

^MSP MAX MSP is a “generalized toolkit for manipulating sound messages.” It takes electrical inputs, alters them to trigger changes in audio or visual outputs. It has commands like [loadbang] and [smother].

Lori Anderson Moseman's latest poetry collections are Flash Mob (Spuyten Duyvil) and All Steel (Flim Forum Press). Her collaboration with book artist Karen Pava Randall, Full Quiver, was just released by Propolis Press. Double | Vigil, a poetic collaboration with Belle Gironda, is excerpted online in the journal Barzakh. Her vispo recently appeared in Opon and The Volta. She runs the press Stockport Flats which she founded ten years ago.

ISSUE ELEVEN: Yes, Sell My Art | next poem →