S is for Schwa
There’s no need to plan for another pile of cars on the
freeway. If there is blood & bone then there is karma.
Delirious moments, arrive together! Having the texture of
down, gravity becomes an apparatus for splitting words
& redistributing them as multiple choice tests. Check
dialogue box & determine whether the beard remains
awake. Like two rotating orbs, the girl’s eyes twirl in their
sockets & avoid the light of day. Once she arrives the whole
world gathers inward momentum. Inward momentum,
is the simple gesture of two lips recurring in a paired
unit. There is the sound & then there is the representation
of the sound. March violence. Without proper identification
papers how can we mimic the peculiar fulcrum of the
beehive? What is one to do, the reader craves the surface
of the moon, not downward angles & planes of simulation.
I dunno. Where it starts is where it ends. Entwined with
soft lashes & battened by howling winds. No wonder
forecasters place their faith in the songs of the thrush
family. No wonder a sherpa agrees to deliver us to this
furtive canyon. As for the girl, she pokes through the
lid of conscious perception to reveal the appellative nature
of image & desire. Mercy, here comes the mullet now. If not
for the apotheosis of nickel acetate would we still cling to the
water underneath this bridge? What happens when the spiral
shaped tube on which we view the ritual of our death is not
in the shape of a spiral? Will we still destroy everything to avoid
phonetic transcription? It’s the same whether it’s the same or not.
| Craig Foltz |
|
levelheaded: S is for Schwa
Refresher: “schwa (noun, phonetics), the mid-central, neutral vowel sound typically occurring in unstressed syllables in English, however spelled, as the sound of a in alone and sofa, e in system, i in easily, o in gallop, u in circus” (dictionary.com). Given that the organizing principle of “S is for Schwa” is a toneless, common sound, the poet challenges us to employ a major shift in the way we think about the words that follow.
As the building blocks of literacy, letters of the alphabet are typically associated with objects—apple, ball, cat—not the intangible. Craig Foltz’ title throws our foundation off-kilter. The speaker’s new alphabet necessitates new words and ideas, even if they appear familiar superficially. His updated world is in a state of neutral-as-schwa upheaval. In this alternate place, “[t]here’s no need to plan.” A quiet chaos reigns, that of the “girl’s eyes” which “twirl in their / sockets,” that of the absence of “proper identification papers.” Our speaker sees human attempts at control as futile.
Furthering the otherworldliness are the motifs of down and gravity. At the opening of the poem, having “the texture of / down, gravity becomes an apparatus for splitting words.” Gravity can feel like soft growth of hair or feathers, and/or like a direction, possibilities that completely disrupt our perception of that reliable force. Later, the speaker asks, “What is one to do, the reader craves the surface / of the moon, not downward angles & planes of simulation.” On the moon (yet another locale, literally out of this planet), the significantly weaker pull would not split words as insidiously as they are dismembered for the speaker and those populating his world.
Acoustics surface explicitly with “There is the sound & then there is the representation / of the sound”; in the final lines, phonetics are referenced with the anxious “Will we still destroy everything to avoid / phonetic transcription? It’s the same whether it’s the same or not.” Seems that “it’s” (As in, reality is? Which reality?) bland as a schwa—the same sound no matter the written letter.
- The Editors
