Brilliance

Jennifer Harrison

Using carbon filament
four decades before Edison’s birth
Sir Humphry Davy invented the arc light . . .  

the technician W.K. Laurie Dickson
developed film stock     the movie camera
and the film projector in homage 

to film’s pioneers     Edward Muybridge
and the Lumière brothers . . . 
	the phonograph     perhaps

and the DC electric system     were Edison’s
but Nikola Tesla’s alternating (AC) current
was more economical     better . . . 

infuriated     Edison used AC 
to publically electrocute animals     stray dogs
 	and an elephant . . . 

no harm done     that elephant killed three men
	Edison (was said to have said)
his mouth shut     in the shape of lightning