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The Dung Beetle Chorus
Two Telecoprids, a male and a female, are collaborating on their sculpting of dung into a brood ball and rolling it away from the dung pat. The male rolls while the female helps to push at first and then rides to a burial site where she lays her eggs in the buried dung ball. While these two rollers are working they sing together
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compose rupture
undo scars of history
birth debris of sound—
not score, a breathing machine—
not depth, surface,
pulses
Underneath the dung pat a large hive of male and female Paracoprids are digging tunnels, forming brood chambers where dung is packed and eggs are laid. These tunnelers are singing in chorus:
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sing multiplicities
no map, no axis,
joy smeared across every surface,
a disobedient text inside history
forget the name of machine
become shifting sound
Across the underground hive of chambers the Endocoprids remain on the dung pats to lay their eggs and we see the larvae develop in situ while the dung dwellers sing:
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word unmade
genre resist
blood soil machine
sing rupture,
bleed obediently into history—
scrape back surface
We see our first two Telecoprids, a loving couple, the female sealing the dung ball and brooding the rapidly growing larva while the male drinks a bee and relaxes. Both of them are singing:
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potential center governs the sound.
music must kneel to history,
kneel in multiplicities,
absence richer than rupture
creation decomposing machine
In the vast hive of tunnels under the dung now the Kleptocoprids emerge, opportunistic thieves of brood balls laboured on by others, squatters that take occupation of chambers built by others. They sing, furtively:
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no machine—
space holds the surface
logic of holes collapses rupture
stutters, glitches, veers into sound,
emits haunted, fugitive multiplicities
no debt to history
Now the Telecoprids, Paracoprids and Endocoprids all band together to eject the Kleptocoprids. They have formed an alliance of the Builders and Breeders Association (BBA). They sing in chorus:
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History insists. But history
cannot speak to this machine.
nameable multiplicities
blur, vibration across surface
resolve into sound—
scrapes and murmurs rupture
The Kleptocoprids are basically cowards and lazy and they are chased out of the hive, nonetheless singing in unsion as they flee:
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curators of rupture
tyranny of history
listen not only to sound
but to what breathes behind the machine.
curdled grammar of surface
of multiplicities
Now the female tunnelers guard and provision their larvae in nests for an extended period while the larvae grow. The roller mothers seal the dung balls and sing lullabies to their larvae:
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To think is to invite multiplicities
without needing a grand rupture,
to trust in unpolished surface
as a refusal of monumental history
It machines, and then lets go, leaking into sound
While the females are guarding their growing larvae the large horned males have competitions and fights for access to females and nesting sites. While they fight they nonetheless sing:
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Not every sound needs a father. Let multiplicities
birth from no origin, no machine, no divine spark, no rupture—
only an ear bent toward history
obscuring the surface
While the large horned aggressive males are fighting the smaller, sneaky males rush into the chambers and mate with the mothers who are guarding their larvae. The mothers are grateful for the attention that the smaller men give them, it is lonely sitting on a larva for six months! The small males sing:
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Scratch the surface
find sound
a ghost protocol of history,
interred across multiplicities,
always threatening rupture,
always forgetting the machine
Some females compete with each other by parasitizing the brood balls of other females, even evicting eggs to replace them with their own. They respond to high dung dessication with more brood theft and spend time refilling tunnels to obscure their nests; All the while singing:
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What kind of machine
is this, that composes surface
without obeying the laws of rupture?
It loops and layers and channels sound,
not to speak about multiplicities
but to embody them without history.
Finally the new larvae are born out of their cocoons. Baby dung beetles emerge and rush to find fresh dung patties and begin the cycle all over again while they sing in very high pitched voices:
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eats history.
metabolizes machine
seek clarity in multiplicities
noise across the surface—
static corruptions of sound, exhale beyond rupture.
Now the entire cast of Telecoprids, Paracoprids, Endocoprids and Kleptocoprids all mass together on an emormous dung patty and sing the final farewell chorus:
So break the idea of rupture
and listen otherwise to history—
not as sound, but as surface,
not as machine, but as multiplicities. |
