may we all be heard
words are bells
let them ring!


Thom World Poet Austin, Texas, USA
Global Radical networker and activist for promoting the live Creative Arts,
at every possible opportunity, especially in his home-city, Austin, Texas, USA


Thursday, March 3, 2011

child hood formats

Those of you  who have never seen or heard a 78rpm turntable
with a handle to crank and a HMV speaker
cannot know the sound of scratches on black shellac
nor the changing of steel needles with each record
Digitally enhanced noise can be added by DJs
skilled in mixing old and new retro riffs-yet that tin scratch thin sound
of Caruso defies contemporary vinyl equivalents
Same with the sound of rain on a tin roof
that drowned out conversation and imposed Nature
upon her human equivalent.This is not nostalgia
This is format.Like Kodak Brownie box cameras
that made miniature black and white prints pre-color/pre-digital
Cars drove slower.People were conversations.We made time for stories.
We had grand mother time.Uncle Time.Now time is grandfathered
I do not idealize what has gone.Hard rock work times and poverties.
Yet basic life can never be the same again
and even if we wished,those times do not remain-
slow steam train time ,Sunday time,horse riding time
sitting and watching time,thinking time-pre-noise quiet time
time to just grow like a garden -to wait olde time out
Time itself has run out.We are shaken awake -elders in a child's mind
All our formats are historic,as our elders become ancestors
their formats stories shared with eyes remarkably like yours..

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