Listening To Cicadas
Thousands of soda chargers detonating simultaneously
at the one party
*
The aural equivalent of the smell of cheese fermented
in the stomach of a slaughtered goat
*
The aural equivalent of downing eight glasses
of caffeinated alcohol
*
Temperature: the cicada’s sound-editing software
*
At noon, treefuls of noise: jarring, blurred, magnified—
sound being pixelated
*
The audio equivalent of flash photography and strobe lighting
hitting disco balls and mirror walls
*
The audio equivalent of lightning hitting your face
*
The sound of cellophane being crumpled in the hands
of sixteen thousand four-year-olds
*
The aural equivalent of platform shoes
*
The aural equivalent of skinny jeans
*
All the accumulated cases of tinnitus suffered
by fans of Motörhead and Pearl Jam
*
Microphone feedback overlaid with the robotic fluctuations
of acid trance music
*
The stultifying equivalent of listening to the full chemical name
for the human protein titin which consists of 189,819 letters
and takes three-and-a-half hours to pronounce
*
The aural equivalent of garish chain jewellery
*
A feeling as if your ear drums had expanded into the percussing surfaces
of fifty-nine metallic wobbleboards
*
The aural equivalent of ant juice
*
Days of summer: a sonic treadwheel