• Gabriel Curtin

Gabriel Curtin

  • Gabriel Curtin

First published in Unusual Work no. 37 (edited by Π.O.).

am i even listening if im deciding what to listen to

images have two sounds what sounds
when they’re worked on what sounds
when you see them

when i worked on i wrote what sounds into a chorus
when i read what sounds i hear what sounds
in my mouth

history is made up of sounds trillions
of temples shooshing fingertips
for example
which helps detach history making
it easier to move

through the day since I’m hearing this now and not
the intensity of what grief I gave

even though what happens
when what sounds alters
how what sounds is heard again

english
for some sirens
for others

if whats familiar is financed by whats
familiar
what sounds is soft pressure
grafting clay to pinch pots

any handle coincident of a wet kiss

how what sounds sounds
familiar duplicates violence duplicates
assumptions of use

for filmmakers opening on snow
climaxing in the desert
morocco is a dummy
lebanon tibet or other planet

they just convoy
glint down the mountain

what sounds while the image is worked on
sounds

a rubbed balloon full of gravel sounds over
snow impressed by snow
leopard

studio assistants slap gloves into a mic
over a bat wing flap

sounds when you see it

if i wrote what sounds into a chorus what sounds left out
if i wrote a love poem that says im surrounded
by reflective surfaces
make a list of what’s around you and deduce
love

anthropologists describe balinese
cockfights with similar intentions

what sounds over description what sounds
in the match

you lie like a pavement fissure away from me and shudder
in the light we surge and dim surge and dim
what sounds in love so precious it wounds itself

saying history is made up of sounds we rehearse
omitting saying

experience is interplay saying
what sounds curled you

what sounds now youre curled what did i

sound to curl you what sounds while i sounded what image

we worked on
what sounds we sounded while we worked

what sounds we rehearsed omitting
what sounds everywhere sounds that image into grief

and what sounds left out
and what sounds now what sounded is history

and what sounds to come except for everywhere the sound of kissing

Living and labouring on unceded Arrernte Country.