instructions

you have to press yourself           to the warm electrodes

let your torso be enveloped in something like the sea or blood

              and the voices   will inhabit you

in an operation unlike any poetry            you have ever heard

                           there is a small risk of drowning

they will sit behind screens impassive unblinking

              perhaps indicating state of mind

              by jabbing the dark glass

exhibition

a red cordon delimited the space

              an exhibition of sounds and agonies

                           from three metallic apertures

                                         you had to think yourself more intensely into it

                                         you had to unshutter

                                         or nothing would happen

              cold in the hill’s shadow

              grey snowstorm fuzz of fundamental particles

              whose quantum effects cannot be ignored

                                         impression of incantation or unscored song

                           looking into the apertures

some of the observers attempted to record the event

but the temporal element compromised their data

consequently

                           the cloud of symbols

                                                                     signified only itself

James Knight is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.

Personal website: https://thebirdking.com/

Painting by Arman Selahvarsi, Courtesy of the Artist