Sounds
/In a departure from my usual style for Glow in the Woods I have written and recorded a poem. You can hear me read it here:
Do I sound sad?
Can you hear it in me?
When I utter banalities
Or common courtesies
About inclement weather
Or paying bills, or other
Everyday utilities
Is that all I’m saying to you?
Or do your ears twitch at
A catch, a crack
A different quality
So “Tea or Coffee?”
Comes with neither milk nor sugar
But rather a side of
“Your choice doesn’t matter to me because neither will bring my dead baby back to life”
Or when I ask
For someone to email me some
VERY IMPORTANT THING
Does my reply seem to be
In some kind
Of dolorous code
Thanking them for
Distracting me
From my melancholy?
Or when I say
“A return ticket to the city please”
Perhaps you’d be aware of the silent addendum
“Not that she’ll ever return to me… because she’s DEAD”
(These are all thoughts I’ve had by the way
So please laugh at me and
My ability to
Dramatise
Catastrophise
And generally
Over-egg
The grief-pudding-of-my-eternal-sense-of loss
Some things deserve derision
Occasionally. Maybe.)
Perhaps
Now
Four years out
My subtext
Has truly
Become
Subliminal
I no longer
Shout my pain
In every word
I even talk about
Sad things
With an air of
Warm reassurance
Then I eavesdrop on myself
Hear
A fragment
Of my voice
On someone else’s
Answer phone
Or notice something
Alien in my
Sister’s tone
That used to be so
Similar to my own
But now seems
Less familiar.
And I hear it plainly.
The sound
Of ancient
Agony
Rasped across
My vocal chords
And I wonder
How it’s possible
That people can
Hear me speak
And not weep?
How anyone can
Ever answer me
Without their own
Remembered grief
Bursting out
Until we are all wailing
At the sky
Sorrow’s choir
Swelling loud
Out out up
Wildly shaking the world
Hurling us about
So we’ll never
Forget her or anyone!
Lost names thunder
Against the horizon
And burst the
Eardrums of the lucky ones
Windows shatter
The plates of the earth
Shift and grate
Teeth rattle
Trees are wrenched
From the soil
Violent noises
Siren voices
All around
Surrounded
Until it seems
The ground would yield up
Her dead.
Is that how I sound?
Is that how I sound?
Or am I only sad in silence now.
Do you have a grief radar? Can you hear it or see it in other people? Do you think they feel it in you?