Music, the Beginning

from 15 Years of Prattle and Din by swampmessiah

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lyrics

In the beginning
was…
the unimaginable.
Not of time,
not of space,
not measurable
by our senses—
unimaginable.
Mathematics
is music
for the ascetic.
Even the most abstract
is an extension
of our senses,
of touch and hearing
measuring the pulses
of the universe,
counting
and extrapolating,
generalizing
and naming,
estimating
the movements
of the living
universe.
Motion
is our perception.
Motion
is existence.
Motion
is what we can know.
Complete stillness
is imagined
as the stillness
of a chair
is imagined,
as the stillness
of a mountain
is imagined,
as the stillness
of the heavens
is imagined.
Human stillness
is like floating
on a current,
like an electron
in its lowest shell.
Our stillness
is moving
just enough
to take a step,
to utter a word,
to see
and listen.
But
stillness
after stillness
is death.
Without fighting the current,
without rising
to a higher level of excitement,
we cease to walk,
cease to talk,
fail to see
or hear,
and drift
into coma
and death.
Like the universe,
for we are of the universe,
motion is our essence.
Whether mindless
or planned,
movement
is our only certainty.
Mathematics
is the treadmill,
tight-lipped
from the burden,
turning a tight spiral
of utility.
Or mathematics
is a prayer
or celebration
of motion, a euphoric cry
ticking along
like the metronomes
of chaos.
Music
is the animal’s analysis
of the universe,
rejoicing
in the pulse of light,
the pulse of air,
the motions of water
and of plants rising,
the deepest vibrations
of the earth
and, most of all,
an animal’s own pulse.
Music is the cipher
by which we comprehend
the bonding of molecules
and the birth
of galaxies,
the replication of cells,
the shifting of continents,
the migrations of birds,
the ebb of tides,
and, most of all,
the only accounting
of ourselves
with the slightest hint
of truth.

credits

from 15 Years of Prattle and Din, released June 28, 2015

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about

swampmessiah Saint Paul, Minnesota

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1957. I've been drawing all my life and painting since about 1975; I started writing poetry and rants in, maybe, 1976; since 1996 I've been recording those poems and rants, usually with a "musical" backing.
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My partner and I have two children. I have a day job that is in no way artistic. ... more