Noise

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“Our main subject is really system noise. System noise . . . is a phenomenon within an organization or within a system that is supposed to come to decisions that are uniform. It’s really a very different thing from subjectivity or bias. You have to look statistically at a great number of cases. And then you see noise.”—Nobel Psychologist, Daniel Kahneman

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in the stillest atmosphere there is noise
atmosphere is a condition of atomic events
in any system of events no matter how apparently uniform is noise
in every instance of synapse-snappings there is noise
in the workings of every machine there is noise

in the language of truth there is not noise
in language opposing truth there is cacophony
(in that of lies: there is serious noise, great noise)

in politics there is no cessation of noise
politics is noise, those who practice it
eat and drink noise, they must.
priests thrive on noise
zealots of any faith are infested with noise
infected with holy noise
writer’s pens spit ink of noise
or their noise appears on screens in pixels
or is spoken —as if . . .

there is seldom silence in a writer’s head
and when there is here comes a touch of panic,
a tear in the whole of the internal,
a rent in the system of an illusory organization of noise,
a looming rest in personal static echoing from
microwaves of a big bang

unbidden thought is noise

nothing is without noise
(consider the dissonance in the line before this)
nothing brings peace
(in that one too) three:
but nothing is impossible
(also cuts both ways)

Jim Culleny, 5/19/21