Bling blam ayeee

 

sound is a monument and we are tearing it down with these here tracks. stink fest, this one. it’s between us and darkness now and the darkness has better violins and also a stronger supply of snares on the two and four. we’ve got our own collection of pots and pans and obscure scrapings. we’ve got to make the symphony start and stop and swell before it sputters. 

I invented song once, and it was exulted for a time before some people said that they’d heard it all before. I was displeased but took the criticism to heart. I let it carbonize and calcify. a slow rolling status quo statue. now I sing strictly miracles. 

I’ve been silent ever since. 

Napowrimo 4/3/26: town crier

Here's today's Napowrimo prompt. 

Some speak the sounds
news let fly
news let fall. 

Let it fall all where it may.

I've been here long enough to know
what needs saying.
More is never less, and I've said nothing that bears
repeating. Yet I've bared it all. 

The good words used to flow through me. I used to
know them all. And still I've withheld so much of
what was given to me to say. 

The words stay inside/stacking themselves and digging
in to my stomach/climbing up my throat in imitation-reflux.

They want out. They don't know what it takes to unwind
the wires of this tired voice box. To let the hiss and crackle take
hold. To cough out the bargains of the day and the cookie cutter
pronouncements. They'll be waiting without patience/toe tapping/
sighing. They'll be waiting for the truth.

They'll know it when they hear it.

They've heard it from me all along.

It's everything I'm not saying.

I've said nothing,
that bears repeating.

we out here?

any sound at all/we have no luxury to picky/out here/where noise is absolute/indefinite silence/uncontrollable, shrill shrieks clamoring to anyone with a willing(?) ear/we will/not be forgotten/not/again//

4/14/25: nocturnal forestry

 Had to wait until later in the day to get this one together. Here's the prompt. Here's a poem from Gabrielle Bates because she is great.

single gasp, swirl like
a distant, muted howl,
wind,
crack of old forest
        leaf skittering
gather    and claw
the ground with 
    gentle, sandpapered
edges.        rock dislodged
rolling
              away, more following now.
another gust and a symphony of 
flailing branches. somewhere, 
a single plunk into the river.
                silent ripplings. in
between the wind and adjustments
nothing makes itself known.