9th Annual Juried Reading Finalist

David H. Hohn
Douglas S. Hahn is the founder and Editor of Sink Review, a little magazine and press located on the north side of Chicago. He holds his undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Loyola University in Chicago.

Fixing A Transformer

This hand as clenched & spiked
     This ratchet wrapped in 600V tape & observed
          as if its movement belonged to another hand

This dustfield cuts along the vector of
     This stone wall hungry for the shade ready
          to open at sunset like aloe on the heat-wave dust

This braided copper (three fingers thick)
     This stray needle threads its way through
          cuticle, draws the blood rivering to the dull braid

This hum pulling lightning from beneath
     This sheet metal floor towards this winding
          of tight coils then through their deep electron hum

This amp probe's needles touch
     This octagon contact that no grounded life could
          contact without riveting against quick maniac amps

This one-handed movement occurs
     This ratchet clicks along its natural rotation
          through the slow beat of the hum one-handed

This music of a delicate snap tuning
     This hum pulling, then degrading the voltage
          into silence from the quiet thunder below, with music

This quiet hum sings between
     This dustfield and this wall, between this silence below
          and silence beyond, the discord of the wind above the quiet of

This chant is nothing.
     This indiscriminate lightning-mantra,
          this hand this ratchet this syncopation

-- Douglas S. Hahn

© 2003 The Poetry Center of Chicago
All Rights Revert Back to the Author Upon Publication.
No Portion of this poem may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.