Some
noises are a pleasant thing to hear, but when I was given the topic of hearing
my mind immediately jumped to a certain Wednesday evening, where I was getting
the bus back from Blackpool. It had been raining, and I was enjoying a dry
journey back home. Now naturally, when you’re driving in the rain the thing to
do is to activate the windscreen wipers to get rid of the water. This is all
fine, but the ones on the bus had this horrific screeching noise that made me
flinch every few seconds.
It
was a horrible sound to hear, and unfortunately I had forgotten my earphones so
I sat there enduring a very subtle torture until I arrived at my destination.
And now, whenever I’m in a car, a taxi or a bus, I always get conscious of the
noise a windshield makes when it rains. Luckily, most cars aren’t like this,
but I do apologize in advance if you happen to notice and shudder at the sound
of the lagging squeak in the future.
From
forks skidding across certain surfaces to nails on a blackboard, I wanted my
poem to focus on the unpleasantness of such sounds, and make it look like an event
instead of something insignificant that just irritates people many times over.
I hope I did the topic justice.
Greetings
Sleeping
on a surface still, dreaming
of
catching chalk, of having its face
doodled
on by playful mathematics.
The
ships make their landing;
four
or five, sometimes eight
all
poised with malice.
Their
keratin hulls slowly descend,
skidding
the wall of black,
Stirring
it to awakening.
Screeching,
screaming
for
hands to evacuate
into
ears, too big to fit
they stick, until it
stops speaking.
Thanks for reading, Dean Tsang.
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