soothed

noise reduction

sleep seduction

reasoned as a holmes deduction

spoon of ice cream

french vanilla

folded in your day’s manila

mood light softener

thermal loftener

peaceful ease will soothe you oftener

one more unarousing drowsing

and through nod-off-land you’re browsing…

AND THEN SOME JOKER CLANGS GARBAGE CAN LIDS TOGETHER LIKE A MONKEY WITH CYMBALS AND JUST WON’T STOP AND A CAR ALARM GOES OFF AND YOUR SMOKE ALARM CHIRPS AND YOUR PHONE ALARM GOES OFF AND WHEN YOU PRESS STOP THE SCREEN GOES DARK BUT THE ALARM PERSISTS

so you invent an ear spray that renders people benignly deaf for ninety minutes

and it’s a hit and you use your new millions

to build a soundproof palatial mansion

surrounded by acres of greensward

and are soooooothed

..

Afterword: Last weekend, when apartment maintenance crew were unavailable, my front-room smoke alarm decided to annoyingly chirp every 20 seconds. First thing Monday I told the property management lady and she sent a guy and he fiddled for a couple minutes and the chirping stopped…but at 9:00 last night, when maintenance crew were unavailable, the chirping began again, and me without a sledgehammer. Today the smoke alarm unit was replaced with one that did not rely on wires in the wall. I’ve slept much of the day away, and then I wrote this.