Telempathy

(Directions: The Caller and Oracle trade the sentence back and forth, feeling their ways through the acoustic dark, in attempt to create a spell by the knowledge that sonic links in words are secret paths that hold mysterious powers. After the break at lines 9–10, the two voices should speak over and interrupt each another until the last line.)

O: I owe it to the meat alone to feel when trouble stays

C: I owe it to the meat of clones to feel when doubles stray

O: I own up to the meek anon to fight when trouble brays

C: I own up to the mare foregone to flee when chateau stags

O: I ant up to the hare baboon to bleat when culture sprays

C: I owl it to the hung baboon to freak when stumble speaks

O: I owl the touchy hood pulse moon to creep when suckers pay

C: I ewe it two above the floor to tell when tongue's in pain

O: Werewolf werewatch the muzzle in the ugh comes here comes the contiguous hum

O: Hussy fur underneath the continuous home unsmuts itself alone

C: I suffer to the pelt again to pulse the wretched gash

O: I sock it to the seal tattoo to hang its agile face

C: I soft up to harpoon hawks to watch a young buck agitate

O: I shot my dove score scrupulous when humped a gutter grave

C: I vote it to the fetus meat to lick white neck remains

O: I gore fat plunder bunk when marsupial awakes

C: I owe it to the bush of flies to tell when fuckers prey

"Telempathy" was generated as a phone conversation between an Oracle and a Caller, recorded on Spoof Card (a very spooky site, which allows you to record your phone conversations) with a friend playing the part of the Oracle (I gave her a script). Then I revised and replayed and revised some more, finally re-recording the piece before the final revision. Since hearing my own voice is both excruciating and alienating, I find that the disembodied, humiliating experience of listening to myself (my writing) via analogue and digital technology brings me to a new place in my own writing, forces me to face my "voice" in a way that subvocalizing or reading aloud can't hold a candle to. I'm usually a very page-bound writer, but lately I've been trying to use various kinds of audiotechnology to compose and revise work. With thanks to friend and writer Kathleen Ivanoff, who plays the Oracle in "Telempathy."

For a biography of Christine Hume, please see page 239.