D.K. Mckenzie, Warwick poet, musician, and creator of The Poe Underground, explores the possibilities of combining the voice of the guitar with the haunting words and expressions of poetry.

In this episode, hear the poems Ether Darkness by James A.S. McPeek and Slow Rhythms (Chant Before Thought) by Rudolph Edward Kornmann accompanied by improvised classical guitar.

Ether Darkness

This dark is beautiful. There is no pain,

No sense is challenged by unmeaning sight—

Only the thick cool blanket of the night

Presses the body and its fevered brain.

Time is sewed quietly by needles of rain—

There is no way to mark this moment's flight

That has no touch with any common light,

Nor so much color as all day has lain

Hidden within a shadowed jonquil bloom.

And in this quietude of nothingness,

There is no sound, no dreaming, no distress—

The darkness flowers to the edge of doom.

Slow Rhythms (Chant Before Thought)

How shall I sleep in

this liquid of moonlight

still and death-steep?

You were breath and delight,

and the moods of your eyes were

of slumber

and fondness—

How shall I sleep?

Remembering your curvedness

(stars at your breasts

and the moons of your thighs)

how shall I sleep—

with the sighs

of your fingertips

haunting my lips?

How shall I sleep in

this liquid of moonlight

still and death-steep?

You were gentle and white

and the sound of your blood is

that breath which will wander

in thin broken twilights

of houses asleep—

(old houses that drowse with

the pain of their wonder

at that which lies under them,

graven and deep).

In this liquid of moonlight,

how shall I sleep?

Watch D.K. record Ether Darkness.

See D.K. record Slow Rhythms.

Visit The Poe Underground⁠ website⁠.

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