Embedded Files
On Sub-Songs
(i.m. J.H.P.)
1.
formless sound prior to
comes over
to sound a wave back
by relation
sub-songs the vagrant chaffinch the migrant chaffinch
memory depleted numbers light & heat known
there breathing the whisper & signs
– the sonogram the grid the diagram the arc the song syrinx doubled voice box –
emerge to buzz & hum float in unresolve
‘with a hope for a word to come in the heart’
the disassembly of sound
& counting
& huts – the heavy cool air of a railway tunnel
made up at the kitchen table
2.
sub-song off
chipped phrases to repair, make good
stars’ dispersal heat lifted from below cloud between Lyrids & Perseids shower invisible daylight
– the ‘full song is practically unknown in the female’
& to write good counterpoint –
– what we experience as beauty, they experience as territory –
cels sub-songs visual aural
light cloud & a gentle breeze 17°
between daylight & searchlight cloud like a lid
metaphor forbidden simile verboten
choughs chattering chiffchaffs confusion chaffinches a charm
of finches
static lost to whispering knots arc thoughts
slant text
3.
to vibrate to the crest thinking
each line is each
new start & swift scythe-wing the hut outside
the clearing stars & arnica
stellar explosions
IT me my ID sub-songs
suspended & among the fields sunlight on cloud
– a gauze of drizzle frequent dislocation –
‘language is how thinking gets done’
AI the computational ecosystem pattern learning
circulation not exchange
carriers rather than constellations
– high & zero accord & cord repetition & variation magic & risk –
crows among ghosts
4.
aural spec
the songs weave out & there’s more – blackbirds, swallows, red kites, buzzards, skylark,
chaffinch witness
blackbird background song down the treeline to corridor song – traffic along the arterial
& so, to the hut – children’s wendy house grandma’s kitchen & the dark path to it
– from now & in the field skylark up & about the field ground nesting –
a pair of red kites circle
a buzzard mobbed by crows
the swifts trapeze artists without wires blue river of the sky imperium
or a crumb of sponge tilted on an index finger-end held towards the beak
of a pinkie chaffinch & his mate the dun-coloured female a distance away
background noise the sound broken
line sound the misremembered line
sound the unremembered line
5.
window in shadow
asymmetric cadence resolving into dissolve
the meeting place sites of encounter
like a hut dis
placed
marginal
slant
ultrasound
chaffinch migrants over on easterly roar
is to look the other way
& continue to no fixed place
no fixed hut
always shine through always shine
so says the lighthouse
6.
bird calls folk song
night music
things saying
the pathway overgrown
from now & memory
outgrown
to re-merge – disappear
to journey from visible to invisible
the tomb empty – atrium ventricle paired
octave sestet – I take my place by heart
hears a bird two deer a pair of rabbits – Orpheus
the wound half open – mouth full of poppies
mirrors & windows
wait waiting
7.
hut of air & light
hut in air in sub song
‘is a quiet rambling . . .
broken up into fragments’
what lives on
to disappear
into the undergrowth
to practice below hearing
Orpheus emerged from his hut
– a fold in the ground to sing to breathe
to relearn the chord
the chorus tape spliced here
& here disturbance in the data
disturbance in the dance
8.
from visible to invisible jamb to frame
out of sight & sounding
distant chirrup ‘two to
four per second’
bird alert to start & tip flick sudden
at the door my kitchen my office my study my hut
vanishing point
sub song
arnica off to the side of the path
of image of chord risk question mark
gulf music muscle
swell of water waves bumping multifaceted glitter surface
no birdsong from the compound no silence
take place in the love of things
9.
along the wall when to listen supplants to hear once singular call
say it straight cul-de-sac incomplete song plastic song congested song
refugee migrant not conforming to any regular pattern in space
imposed quiet in forest at a height of 10 or 20 feet
this trace step by step or all the words from memory meeting at once
countersinging song for song now or now the fullest day along
small shade moving sub song now in dialect ick still coming over collide a scope
mirror writing mirror speech mirror song Kasper Hauser anacolutha refuse
you – an accident of ancient sunlight mirrors windows reset watch
pile of signs overseen huts posts view
take in repertoire now then later near whine from afar
moth flight alert indeterminant potential
sonnet little sound vanishing time now but look
of everything
Sources
J.H. Prynne, Paul Celan, Pietrazki, Marler, Astakhova, Rilke, Thorpe & Pilcher.
Simon Smith has published ten collections of poetry including a selected poems and a complete Catullus translation. He most recent work is a book-length series of prose poems, The Magic Lantern Slides, from Crater Press in 2025 (http://www.craterpress.co.uk). ‘On Sub Songs’ forms part of new work made of fourteen-line paragraphs called CELS. Other current projects include imitations of Du Fu and Wang Wei (with Ian Brinton). For many years Simon worked at the Poetry Library in London, later teaching creative writing and poetry at various universities. He is Emeritus Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.
Copyright © 2026 by Simon Smith, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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