Harmonic distortion, which is one way I am thinking of what I write (a cadence that might not be unusual but is unnatural for its diction, in writing that does not belong, its music as a sort of grotesque non-thing) may allow the listener to hear the melody even when there in fact is no pitch, music has ceased to exist, by mastery of technique.
Let’s suppose then a poem is that interplay between meaninglessness and distorted music:
poem=music/noise^2
So without noise the poem is undefined, which could be one way of thinking of the front page: its claim that poetry without noise is not art, has no poetic.
In this poem, by Zukofsky, newness exists in an absence of music adding meaning.
What are these songs
straining at sense—
you the consequence?
Anew 10
‘straining’ seems musically unclear, perhaps because of the visual and semantic meaning of the ‘s’ being met by my eyes before my ears due to a potential pun and its audible music (the surprised yet slow tone of the poem make the variation in sibilance somewhat redundant compared to the tight and elegant pattern of ‘s’) being less memorable (all of which is underlined by the closing rhyme and brevity of the poem), so that the torque of the line-break is visible.
In this poem by me, there is an appearance of something similar. I think the cadence of the third line makes it seem thicker, more viscous – interacting with the immiscible meaning of ‘love’ – so that music suggests it itself is a separate layer.
Horizon
— pull out his eyes
Magistrate, judge
the line (not tender milk
but feet) emulsion, love
+ guilt.