String Theory

by Kevin Young Dum 

“The A string of a violin…is designed to vibrate most

readily at about 440 vibrations per second: the note A.

If that same note is played loudly not on the violin

but near it, the violin A string may hum in sympathy.”

--?

Watson and Crick found only proof

Man’s world tumbles and rises

Conspiralling in the recurrent helix

  Of its malcontentious desires—

And that by an accident;

  The three dimensional image

  Of Vico’s history, Campbell’s masks

And mutating grand, intuited grimace.

  Already Blake had set our energies

To click the bomb’s time when reason

Most divides—

                          for him divinity marked

the territory where the bark of confusion gnarled the sides.

We keep up the HazMat failure,

smithying ourselves into molten worms,

our experiences like hamburger meat cannoned through a colander,

or Playdoh squeezed out in serpentine shapes.

We are told the universe is strings,

writhing like water snakes and open ground chuck.

Should we bless it on a ship,

at the table, hands in a steeple,

an albatross cut steam and nice plump with a butter knife?

Strong string is always layered,

which I can see.

Chords are not one note, but

many strung in unison—

Even our DNA is twisted like the twine of a noose, or

the half open zipper of a body bag. 

Ommmm. Jai guru.