Chatterbox: Inkwell

Poetry Corner 

I think I saw one of these when I was scrolling through semi-old threads, but I'm not sure I called it that. Anyway, this is a place to post your poems and get advice/comments on it. This is a place for friendly critique, but not unkindness. There isn't nearly enough poetry on CB, in my opinion.

Here is a (very long) one by me, if you have the patience to read it. It's called "You Think You Can Hear" but I'm considering changing it.  

You think you can hear?

Just because your puny

ears

Can pick up loud,

wails

of sound?

You’re only

fooling yourself. You

can't hear

better than

a rock.

Why bother giving

you humans sound at all

When this beautiful power

is wasted

On headphones,

jammed indifferently onto ears

Howling,

Muddled,

Ugly,

Music?

Not likely.

I know what

Real music is.  

Not one person has heard

what counts

if

they haven’t fought

to hear—

Blades of grass

Swishing in the wind

A river’s chuckle as it

trips merrily over

water-shined silver stones,

I see you beings,

I watch above from my perch,

You only pick up

The most obvious cries,

Of voices,

The maddening shrieks

Of human-made noise.

I can’t bear it,

When every morning,

I awaken,

sweet music—

True music—

flowing

Like a river

Out of my heart

You never hear, you never notice

me.

Not one of you

Has heard love

Has felt power,

suffering,

triumph,

emanating from a single sound.

Unless you’ve heard

Silence,

felt the peace,

of nature.

Which, I know,

is hard in your world

When honking horns and

The grinding of wheels against

A hard, concrete curb.

I know what you are thinking.

I want music,

You protest.

I’m looking for pure quiet,

but

It doesn’t exist.

That’s true.

Absolute silence is maddening.

What I mean is

Escape from all

Human-made sound.

Even after you know this…

You haven’t looked.

I see you

I sit patiently on your windowsill,

watching,

As you try in vain

to escape.

The closet

Behind the coats,

is the wrong place,

You’ve found.

Undertones ring in your ears

Voices

The oily sizzle of mom’s

frying pan.

Even the gentle hum

of

Air conditioning.

Peace isn’t the park either.

The crunch of a peanut in another’s mouth

Car wheels scrape the curb

In the background.

It seems impossible.

This I understand all too well.

I stay away from your towns

If at all possible,

Preferring to rest

In tranquil nature.

But remember I said  “seems.”

But maybe,

Someday,

When you visit, possibly,

your Aunt Margaret, In

say, Maryland,   

In her rural house

By the woods.

As you whine from

Lack of electricity

Your parents might just

Shoo you out to play

In the forest.

And as you angrily shuffle

your feet among the leaves

Sending my kind flapping nervously away

craving internet,

deeper you wander through the trees,

Till you pause to sulk

on a log,

Unmoving in your funk.

Slowly…

Your ears fill…

With a faraway babble

Of a brook,

A robin’s quiet chirp,

the gently sigh of a breeze

as it tickles your ear

and winds around your cheeks.

Then entranced,

You pause,

Listening,

Seemingly far away

From civilization.

Slowly,

You smile and stand up

As you walk

Peacefully, happily, away

I sigh and drift off

On a breath of wind,

I laugh— Maybe

Humans

Aren’t

So deaf

 

After all.