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Something New: Rachael Boast reads Listening to Tennyson

What other unearthly voices
might exist out there?
Say words are seeds broadcast
into space, scattered
across the field of space,
these shortwave crackles
are stony ground for seed-words
to tremble in and freeze.
That which is lost is simply
unfound and might come back
to us, or travel further out,
seeding in waysides of space
devoured by space, which is
greedy for words. Lines trail off
into the valley of death
where the six-hundred rode,
the six-hundred gone,
and one who had blundered
is lost to inaudible time
as time wears on. Waves
sink the sounds of war
into deep space, a grave
for the six hundred, and more,
charging into the valley
even as it vanishes. From page
to sound wave, they charge
forever into the valley
and vanish. Give thanks
for words that travel,
surviving senseless war.
Through the rhythmic crackle,
the sound of scorching rain,
through the starry shrapnel
the echoing stampede,
through distorted after-shots
of silence, they remain.

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