The poetic voice in Judith Beveridge’s “The Mosquito, Riffs and Plaints” demonstrates a preference for sounds and noises in all sorts of shapes and sizes before settling in to apostrophize a certain insect and in so doing tell us of irritation in the midst of all those preferences.
[…] Little aching creature stuttering to the night
like a tiny violin, you look like one of Liszt’s hemi-demi-semi-
quavers scrawled across night’s long stave. With you I countinsomnia’s digits, all your mal-arias are buzzing in my blood.
The poem ends with punning anticipation:
I’m waiting, Morse-quito, for my hand to slap a message
back — just once, loudly — and quick as your electric dialect.
from Storm and Honey
And so for day 1257
23.05.2010