cicada summer in the sunny south -- Kit Kelen's response to John Bennett's 'Acoustemology'

 

cicada summer in the sunny south

 

it is a wooded tinnitus

and cast eyes down

 

or grey

how do they see?

 

Black Prince

with tymbals

as to masque

or tournament

 

thinking's all apocalyptic

you bucket it out like a miser

 

to float through the garden

like a veil of wing flung

 

just these few weeks

to joust and mate

 

so armoured for the fray

because a stutter flown

 

stim music

 

strafe the ear

 

and perched

and cling

 

grim for

 

must feed on sap

as royals do

 

all chorus

(that's to say, refrain)

 

song of the Magicicada cassini

head banging?

no, techno

 

and this one who was never king

but good for burning, ravaging

on all flanks and utterly

so here's much booty brought

 

in the Jurassic were mega-cicadas

 

shall we feed the birds this challenge of flight?

 

in a certain stillness struck

can you hear the alien whirr of we're here

 

lion gorged with three parts argent

 

we serve the nymphs deep fried

 

this must be the seventh year