DISCS AND TAPES

 

                                      Whereas long-playing records correspond,

                                      In the outer darkness of their stylus naturalism,

                                      To a centrist political equivalent,

                                      Video tapes correspond, in the outer light

                                      Of their filmic subnaturalism,

                                      To a left-wing political equivalent,

                                      Whilst audio tapes correspond, in the inner darkness

                                      Of their intellectual antinaturalism,

                                      To a right-wing political equivalent.

                                      Hence 'liberal' albums,

                                      'Social democratic' video tapes,

                                      And 'conservative' audio tapes.

                                      But as alternatives to these democratic media

                                      Of sound reproduction are the bureaucratic media

                                      Of outer-darkness singles,

                                      Inner-darkness tape recorders,

                                      And inner-light compact discs,

                                      With left-wing, centrist, and right-wing implications

                                      Corresponding to socialist, ecologist,

                                      And feminist positions that contrast (disc with tape

                                      and tape with disc) to the democratic positions above,

                                      As though in a particle/wavicle antagonism

                                      Between hard and soft options,

                                      Singles naturalistically hard

                                      Whereas video tapes are subnaturalistically soft,

                                      Tape recorders anti-naturalistically soft

                                      Whereas LPs are naturalistically hard,

                                      Compact discs supernaturalistically hard

                                      Whereas audio tapes are anti-naturalistically soft.