Rita Tognini



Deaf Sentences

The audiogram maps my soundscape, plots landslides in high frequencies. The audiologist tells me I hear like the elder I hope to be in twenty years, or more; says my cochlear hair cells are in disorder— dead or distorted, their …

Posted in 109: NO THEME 12 | Tagged

Landscape with Family

Karri keep watch over mill town, basin bulldozed of trees. Rows of timber houses, weatherboard and corrugated iron corralled by closed-picket fences. Gardens where weeds spread disorder. On the dirt road a family poses for a photo, a triangle of …

Posted in 104: KIN | Tagged

Stand-off

Prague Spring Photograph, 1968 The Prague crowd jostles a tank– soldiers, just boys, at the gun turret. Legs stretched out, feet crossed, one seems relaxed, but a tense torso and Kalashnikov negate the casual pose. His comrade’s leg dangles over …

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

In the Belly of the Whale

If Jonah’s whale swallowed an ocean liner it would become a roving Atlantis — a doubly submerged city crossing from equator to Antarctic from Arctic to Tropic of Cancer. Would propellers pollute acoustic channels scramble the whale’s sonic songs, strand …

Posted in 91: MONSTER | Tagged