Alice Coltrane, ‘Going Home’, Lord of Lords (1971)
Aah... I... Ah-aah...
I found...
I found I...
I found I, just didn’t need...
I just didn’t need, drone need, just didn’t, drone...
Sense organs cut through the tune that this tune could be, just didn’t need, this tune takes place inside. I what? Inside ear worm, in in indignity.
Strings lay down staircase, impossible staircase, finding itself to be, going home, just didn’t, getting. Anyone the sound of living alone. I found a way to be. I what? Be home. Drone unaccompanied. Anyone the sound of going home, supermundane and supreme.
You, the harp sunsets.
Blaze!
Harp sink us into ourselves, darkwash away the lie of heart’s lowlights. Consciousness snail us within, silence, blaze! This tune upscales us monochromatically – ah-aah, I-aye, um-what? – moon drives us on to electro- organic heights.
Impossible staircase, get us nowhere, get us raised up, ultralight beam lights.
To going home, to stolen home, to reclamation’s getting nowhere, to down home, drill down, drop off whitebread heights. Brave background! Unscrew tune, invert ear drip, buttery be.
Electro-organic slide we sound. Sunset all the friends we knew. Sound play with luminosity, invite light to the party, sunrise too soon. Most freest silence!
Anyone else, the sound of self inverting self, impossible staircase a means of getting away. Anyone else laid down by lights, shot through with countersunk holes. Anyone else body boltholes, tube lit, home having home as its main cause.
Anyone else body home having home as its main cause. Snail shell battle cry, resonance following most subtlest sound.
Pour sand in ears to catch lightning strike. Trail sand through body home. Grit glissando, irritate ear, glass worm, too late.
My harp sings despite itself, squirms heartily, my sun sets, you-ooh, ow-aum, lightning struck my ears emit, I-aye, supreme-aye, ow-aum, emanate earwax homing device, I-um, this out be, this out be.
Out be.
Alice Coltrane, ‘Govinda Jai Jai’, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana (1976)
I the sound of living together
I-aye, ow-aum
tickle the spark in disharmonic intervals:
you-ooh-oh
cup, chin, aah!
in a field someone is falling
buttercup tickles my living alone
someone is falling
in buttercups alonefully! when –
she! little mothers of the phonemes!
all clothed with sound earlined lips
germinating words keeping word-bound speech-clad
lovers apart, together, apart, together
phonetic mitosis on the tip of the tongue
she! generates a party made out of mantras!
someone is face down at the party
too full too soon, i.e. ready to evolve
syllabic bloat... causal stress...
I! bursts open at the party
the aloneful party falls apart in a field
together, apart, together
in a field of one, a battlefield
the supreme I ayes
she generates a party, skull cracks into chorus,
causal stress bursts into chorus, one must be identified
with the sound of the spheres: oh-ow-aum!
one must sound out cracks in the foundations
of the field, buttercups in the cracks
not a gladness too soon
gladness only exists only too soon
existence is the effect caused by vibrations
of the existential-potential:
one is identified with the whole world
and thus indifferent to it
one must identify the void in the whole world’s heart
with the void in one’s own heart
the party changes its tune
anyone else clapping, everyone comes in
on the clap only too soon gladness comes
in between claps there are fields and fields
of buttercups between claps battlefields
the chorus is cowherded in between claps
in a field someone is tidying the cowherd
gladly tidying chart success of any kind
implies inequality of tensions, everyone
isn’t wearing kaftans underneath it all
everyone isn’t keyboard players victorious
over life, i.e. resigning it willfully
the chorus slows down for emphasis
one must lean back, lean backbreakingly
far back, failing one’s rights of primogeniture
discount bin appropriation, lie face down
in the interval before the last vibration:
the last clap back
dissolution is the pinpricking of tensions
to a divine ear homogeneity to a divine ear
The Divine Ear must be dissolved
This work was commissioned by Patrick Farmer and is forthcoming in Azimuth (Oxford: Sonic Art Research Unit, University of Oxford Brookes).
Nisha Ramayya's poetry pamphlets Notes on Sanskrit (2015) and Correspondences (2016) are published by Oystercatcher Press. With Sandeep Parmar and Bhanu Kapil, she co-authored Threads (2018), a creative-critical pamphlet published by clinic. She is a member of the Race & Poetry & Poetics in the UK research group and teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London.