1
in a soundproofed room
you are still bombarded with signal
and depending on your instrument of translation
may receive modulated radiation from the electromagnetic spectrum
the least exhalation of breath and the most harrowing shriek and all between flow through you constantly though encrypted
but shut off the phone and be alone again
with your own pulsed heart and
your own rhythmed breath
heart’s lobed beat
lungs’ swelled fill
beat and fill
quiet
2
the main sound on the predawn desert mountain trail
is the scrape of your soles on scree cinders
but the near silence allows calibrated gain
and then are heard the thwips
and rustle
and padpadpad
of fauna and flora
stop on a rock and blink away the runoff from your brows
turn away from the view of the parking lot and look at the panorama you made
with nothing but a footborne change of elevation
and you’ve earned a silence of approbation
and when you break it with a twist
of your waterholder’s top
and then with the buhbloop of good and cold
over your tongue and down your throat
it’s hard not to “aaaaah!” with satisfied volume
and then enjoy a low-hummed resilencing
bent a little by the miraculous, bone-conducted sound
of your blinking eyelids
NOTE: My illustration for this poem is the first crack at Scratchboard I’ve had in thirty years or so. Consequently, the inherent strength-through-contrast of the medium is offset by the clumsiness of the practitioner. The next ones will be better.
