VI. Sound Assemblages of the Resistance

CONTENTS

1. "Echoes" (A Poem)

2. "Kronk" (A Soundpiece)

3. "The Little Puddle" (A Children's Story)

1

Aeqias's beginning as a poet was auspicious. In the below undecanelle, a favorite 11x11x11 form taught in the lowschool, Aeqias pays homage to Mod Virs Alent while painting a general picture of wateryouth as it was. By mingling her own eloiname with that of her hero, she creates at once an ode to Mod and a partial self-portrait (which includes an account of her harrowing escape from the town stadium). The Aquaegis Council had the unnet engraved onto the faces of an 11-sided stone, then dropped to the bottom of the Mechanical River to await the current's eventually pushing of it against the Rock of Jugs (by eNGtSH point) where it could provide inspiration to the secretive bugstraw armada.

Charles awoke from a fitful sleep full of dreams
His ears met a symphony of sunrise sounds
His eyes opened slowly as a babe at birth
He savored the thought of breakfast on the porch
His dad had yesterday slaughtered a lion
He tried to forget about cleansing the pen
He had hoped to wake up to more cheerful thoughts
In the end they were the dreams that did him in
The gore was at the heart of the grim plot twists
Like the beheading of Mrs. Dealyford
A transitory blip on a psychic train.

"Mind the mercury this A.M.!" Mom mantra'd
Her voice an ancient madrigal of magic
Hot water was being drawn for the coffee
Shouldn't hot days commence with cold potables?
"The heat'll be the life of you," Momical
Magical, like a boxed boob under the saw
A splash of orange and the gall atwitter
Pass the salt, pass the pepper, pass the butter
I love nothing so much as a yum brekky
And Sarah Yay voted against fried fowl
She should've been shipped out to the Gurnicles!

Paragon beckons from the arco haven
Bling, bling, ding, ding, flipper catch, ramp, special, POP!
Go again do over reincarnation
Glug, glug, zesty carbonic in jugular
Killin' like the King-O on the nature show
Rippin' apart hide and bone, hide and seekin'
Written in clay like the old school pottery
Shottery penalty finalty run back
With this ring I thee wetback birthday bucket
Sir, hand me that towel, da shitz hit da fan
Get me da bling pop ring-o-power outta

Here lies the liars on the Kingsford pyres
Sound that old sea miner dirge on the lyres
Seed planted, seed sprung, stem cell, whim spell, be stung
Teach a man to fish and outlaw his Cain poll
No tearing asunder from six feet under
Ashes to ashes and bussed you all to dust
It's a mall rat blitz on a porcupine spitz
I'm pickin' Cupid outta my bicuspid
Jonesin' for King and Wellstone won't no freak thing
El blown Whitestone and I'm on the next slow boat.

Home is where your hard knocks on the spirit is
Mirrored like a crab cannon locked and loaded
Bloated with the feet swellin', sista yellin'
Scoop du jour, mon coeur, leave out the haute couture
The caisson goes rolling a long, long way home
Beware Dr. Dub a.k.a. Dub, M. D.
He's on a dare, I daresay a scareydare
A downshift to reverse in manual terms
For the love of god and godiva chocolate
Boo the shield and the chaps and da coat of arms
Elevate, capitulate, sail on, sail on.

My sitter drowned in the Fountain of Lambeth
She could play that old polonaise double time
The mother of us always died in childbirth
Finger lickin' gold wrecks digging in the dirt
The cold earth made warm by the urine of love
The armband banned by a band of angelghosts
The gates of heaven flung wide like slurry locks
To rush into Elysian fields again
To lay me down, lift me up in lemon groves
Park, land, park, view, pass over the underpass
Floating away, ferrying onward, outward.

There was a guy, a smith, and a grove of elms
Rhythm of a tannery, hide and seek games
Coming of age, make a play, a star is born
A shrine to fish at times -- more often, I wish
We all hoped to see the lions croak some day
Those bullies were trained by a gloomy groomer
He pitted flyers against walkers, swimming
His goal: the elimination of the apes
His means: the romancing of the resistance
He fell into a well -- sic semper T-Rex
Last I heard he strode the wrong side of the sticks.

Charles Stratford went thataway to inland
Strumming and drumming down basement up attic
Fake name, fake age, made up him'rage, stealth mummer
Played for tipsy, gone topsy turvy, then puked
Faked his demise to evade them eyes on him
Cued by sages not to play for slave wages
Got on slow, then out the window, and ran off
Intercepted a cabbie and blanked on bank
Stealth murmurs of resistance the attraction
Wave the fare, din and done, thin-faced man, no gun
Whisked by autonomous underground choo-choo.

Brother was an optimist, couldn't go there
Took to the windy spindle for a rondo
View Mr. Stratford at the local nursery
Scraping his plate into the rancid ash can
Passed away of heartbreak, reborn a gent
Pushin' lead for da man, tippin' secret hands
Guise of a zealot, founded union dot com
Tackles the big questions, hooks the big fishies
Adores his work, fondness for green subversion
Former vision played, alas, like wet linen
Frequents the riverboats going nowhere, man.

He be a cock, flying and multiplying
Song of hisself, an aria day coppo
Hatched a fair punishment for tossing a pen
Spend lunchtime calculating circumferences
Measuring mausoleums by memory
Mindful of the ties that bind the birds and bards
On his person is plied a parson's pension
Two minutes to go and a warning's warming
"Be a peach and punch drunk me in my beach trunks."
Caves of ice, Oz, Walden, Eden, Paradise
Deliver me, I suck, Oui, Deliver me

A dream, a damn mist, a field drum, a high rose
Rat tat tat root toot toot and the gold horn blows
A new blue room ere the burst out of the womb
A fest, a fast, a feast by the light of moon
I died, you did, who did not fall but the loon?
We are sunk, the dam dumbs, the dram hums, all thumbs
Ah, but ad the vance and mad the dance, we go
Pitch the bitch and pole the witch straight to the hole
We can be whole, as one, a flame, Ho-Li grail
A link on a chain of life wet like first sin
We go, come now, we go in this, andiamo

 

2

A plan was consequently hatched by the Council that included sound as a weapon of mass destruction against the Glass Creatures. A language of resistance was born and the below served as their Indictment, Declaration of Independence and War Strategy. [Later historians discovered that these three tenets actually occur in reverse order in the below text. One of the most compelling reasons posited for this structure is that: Glasstongue, the language of the oppressors, located its most essential grammatical keys at the ends of very long sentences. The Glasspeople were certain that only they had the intellect to banter about in their complicated language. The last thing they expected was the creation of a language by the citizenry that would actually be more complex with even longer sentences with even more important things located at the end.]

Kronk scrag chunglebuddalump
Dollom punglegarch koscrakarl
Larchmontenegraspen mmm sisz
Grapestock shinghmmeer luggle
Kinchonz marmelarm didderdad
Sclurcomm sclurcamm sclurcumm
Chardonarden sternbotch scotchmerlinz
Shenand oahvern barbedirwin
Chestwood thorizevicle zepplfrod
Asspez doolikib setsemac
perxess scajon yotatomichebox
Bugstraw armada emergencize
Allappalachic cum chiquitacinc
Minneopoly campcreek beddinbrook
Jopplhov iccostar swoodcot K
Gandifowl afrooterfond schninkerpol
Ostrinker butchregallicorn
Pughsrun nedrikoqridun dollspotz
Indocrinkolingerlajenk beegerdan
Jospray latterly bongoswoop thomscreek
bigbee fiftyscree stinger loggitybrak
Sadaladda coomyspadda
Bettybilbaboopow nowthen
critcher turnuglify primincramon
baddlelove seed or creekuntciu
thermacube rideshroyal o
con nailnolef ternex sellulord faxway
transdot tokentrail gaiconsul
repon ravaroot
sareentacks romneymile opekwan springs
apaplex orchebird mannysass ihop
chevoolf castaprange caennelloen omahaut
cativan idsney paziza holtogey mohos
unsubscribe sitters o remcy
inconsecrential stripe motto joyful at scifi
plarulismobeen dictnot ixtenes 1134
leady mouche first buckov jugs
MCM Vüløß riLteC alleim board
FitLUd oSHwTHn tISh FetUoCKilI eNGtSH.

 

3

A favorite children's tale to give comfort to the exiled.

The Little Puddle

   There once was a little puddle. Like all little puddles, it was a sometime thing. Whenever it rained the little puddle would get full of water and whenever it didn't rain the little puddle would shrink, sometimes to nothing at all. The little puddle resided on the side of a dusty old road underneath the shade of a great oak tree. In fact, it was the shade of the oak tree that helped the little puddle stay full for longer after the rains by shielding it with one its great branches from the summer sun.
   On one side of the little puddle was a creek that ran along the road. The creek always had water, for its water ran down the sides of the mountain beyond it and by the time the mountain had run out of water to give it would always rain again. Across the dusty road and further still rolled a great river, which was even more inexorable than the creek. Between these two confident bodies of water the unsure puddle always felt intimidated. It was unsure if would be around from week to week. It felt "impermanent."
    The river liked to rib the little puddle. It would chuckle, "Oh just wait. Someday the rains will be so mighty that I will burst my banks and you'll just become part of us."
    The creek was more sympathetic and would comfort the puddle by saying, "Don't worry. Even if we become saturated by the river's water, it won't last forever. It will eventually recede, and you and I will be able to maintain autonomy. Yeah, autonomy. Look that one up."
   One day city workers came out to the land near the puddle. They began to dam the river and shovel sand into the creek. The puddle was mortified. To make matters worse it had been a week since the last sprinkle and the puddle was very small indeed. It listened all day to the agonizing cries of the disappearing creek, and to the ever-distancing murmurs of the relocated river. The little puddle began to wonder, "What will become of me?"
   The glass-dwelling city workers milled past the puddle all the day long. The puddle began to wonder when they would come to it and shovel sand on it, filling it in like the creek. But they didn't seem interested.
    The puddle heard one say, "It'll dry up by tomorrow, anyway."
   This angered the puddle. "Maybe I'll dry up, but I'll be back! I always come back!" it thought. Meanwhile, it mourned the tragic demise of the creek.
   The little puddle did, in fact, linger for weeks as the showers of the month of May kept it filled. The Glass Dweller workers had turned their efforts toward filling in the vast, emptied riverbed with a sprawling concrete and glass park. Structures and a pavillion began to take shape where once the river sauntered by. The river was now imprisoned behind a dyke, forming a stagnant reservoir from which the Glass Dwellers could draw energy for their hydroelectric mills.
   The little puddle was by now so incredibly lonely. It was the only standing water for a mile in all directions. (And by standing I mean sitting, for water doesn't stand, it sits or lays. Only, we call it standing.) "When I dry up there shall be no water anywhere near here!" The ferns, weeds and junebugs all agreed. Even the oak nodded. They, too, were sad about this state of affairs. Many stands of ferns (who really did stand, though not very straight) along the old creekbed had already disappeared.
   Then one June day a massive thundercloud rolled in. And then more of them. No Glass Dwellers were to be found outside the sanctuaries of their own structures. The big oak swayed and creaked. The junebugs were blown away to their next destination. The ferns bowed down to the very ground under the gusting winds.
    At once, with a mighty thunderclap, the cloudburst came. Water streamed from the sky in torrents. The puddle felt good about this, as it knew it would grow to a very big size, and its existence would be affirmed. To "exist" was the most important thing of all, because that meant that you "were" or that you "would be." Nothing more. That's obviously more important than your size, or "how" you were. All of that kind of business would forever change, but not without "existence," which, for the little puddle, was looking very good indeed.
   The deluge continued. The rain could not find its usual pathways along the contours of the earth. Both the creek and the riverbed were no longer there! Rivulets of fresh, cool water came running down the slope of the mountain right over the old creek, and it came running off the concrete and glass structures on the former riverbed heading directly for the puddle! The puddle grew and grew and grew!
   The rains continued for an entire week. The puddle's edge had now reached the top of the old creek embankment on one side and was moving toward the glass park on the other. Its waterline moved up the trunk of the old oak tree to its lowermost branches. "My, my," said the oak.
   A couple of days later the puddle was a pool, and then it became a pond. When the rain subsided a fortnight later, the puddle had grown to become a lake. A whole lake! The tops of ferns were waggling on the surface of the water. Waterbugs and dragonflies flitted every-which-where. Large beasts came down from the hills to drink. Fish spawned. Flowers and bulrushes burst out of the ground along the banks, and bees and hummingbirds dove into their buds. The old oak tree said, "My, my, I guess I'm a water oak now. I'd better wear some graybeard." In fact, the old tree became the center of the lake and, therefore, the only monument marking where the little puddle once stood.
   Now, the puddle was wondering how long it might take to shrink back to its former size. But one day some more city workers came to the the shore of the lake and put in a boat. They spent many hours puttering around the lake, from the flower-spangled side to the partly-submerged glass park, way up to the dam they had built before the rain, which was not far from the edge of the new lake. They were overheard saying things like "flood plain" and "saturation" and "high shelf" and "mistake."
   Over the next few weeks workers returned. They began building a high concrete wall around their glass park, so high that neither the lake nor the oak tree could see over it. The lake shrank only a little bit during this time, but the puddle, who was experienced in these matters, knew that it could not remain a lake forever unless it rained all the time. Over time, it shrank to the size of a pond again.
   But then one day the workers did something to change things forever. They cut a hole in the banks of the reservoir where the dam was – that artificial lake on the hill where the waters of the old river circled about in a torpor, enslaved to make power for the Glass Dwellers. The old river water poured excitedly into the pond, making it get bigger and bigger than ever before!
   The old river was gleeful – "We haven't flowed like this in months!" it exclaimed.
   The waterline rose and rose and rose, up the side of the high concrete wall on the river side; overtaking the flowers and bulrushes on the creek side; creeping up the hill by the reservoir; and rising precariously up the oak tree trunk, dowsing its new graybeard. Eventually the lake was as high as the reservoir, and a vast new body of water existed.
   The old oak tree was completely submerged.
   The lake said, "I'm so sorry. I never meant to drown you like this. And after all that you did for me to help me exist!"
   The oak replied, "Aw, it's OK. I didn't much like hanging moss anyway. I'm very old, you know, and this is far better than being chopped down or struck by lightning. Besides, now I can finally swim! And the fishes seem to like me. You just keep being a good lake and I'll still help you exist from underneath you, instead of over you. Don't forget, you used to help me exist, too, when you gave life to my roots."
   This made the lake less sad. Then the river, which was now mingling with the lake, said, "Who would have ever guessed that a puddle could save a river! If it were not for you our waters could never flow outside of the prison walls of the reservoir. If you had not been such a stubborn little puddle, you would never have become a great lake! You really showed those Glass Dwellers! Just look around you!"
   And this the lake did. Ducks and geese swam on its surface and loons nested along the cattails. Trees grew tall and strong along the high side and woodpeckers drummed in their boughs all day. The wind drew songful wavelets across its fine expanse, and clouds sprinkled droplets in sonatinas all summer long. The waterline never dropped thanks to the permanent influx of the old river from the reservoir. The puddle had unexpectedly found its permanence. It would be here forever, if forever really exists.

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