Sacrifice

Awareness pierced As though through the slow curving sparks above, While phosphor-gleaming surf was swirling round your boots, Tilting your poise. Infused, you knew the elemental frame: The fragile bond among all living things came clear. It’s been disturbed. You…


DDT

(DDT: Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) Dichloro, diphenyl, trichloro, ethane. The Nobel prize, perverse nobility. Born from destruction, spoils of war. A chemist conjured grim toxicity, Was gifted that guilt-stained reward. Dichloro, diphenyl, trichloro, ethane. Fortuitous discovery: Insecticide improves our lives. The capitalist industry…


Reverence

A. Your first approach. Tread yellow sand Swept into crescent dunes Scored with swerving ripples corrugate. When you debouch: Keen ozone tang, Brine sudden on your tongue, Bracing wash of sea breeze in your face. B. Slow rolling curls collapse,…


Phylogeny

Demure in your outworn attire, You blend discretely in the group, Shrug off the schoolyard taunts and skipping rope. Endure instead the numbing chores, domestic care, ’Till you can stealthily escape. Snakes and spiders, finches, ferns: Myriad forms reticulate. A…


Oblong

While compositionally unremarkable, Oblong is the result of a fresh attitude. Instead of striving for some sort of artistic growth, the piece emerged from simply playing around, venturing where inclination led. Its patterns and phrases are not square. Rather, they…


Altostratus

“Altostratus” is a three-voice hand-triggered modular synthesizer piece featuring long-held notes that could be thought to resemble altostratus undulatus clouds. The synthesizer is tuned with just intonation.


Awaiting her return

The 2022 Unthunk album Elliptic is based on the celestial mechanics concept of orbital resonance, which is the phenomenon wherein the orbits of bodies such as planets and moons may be synchronized, due to the gravitational forces among them. The…


Galumph jr.

Despite its irregularity, the riff durably persisted though several efforts to assimilate into an ensemble piece. Here’s an early draft: an overture.