April 2010
VOL XVIII, Issue 04, Number 204
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
BY THE SILENCE I WILL KNOW
ON TINNITUS, DEAFNESS,
AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS
by
Michael R. Collings
The Poems
From My Ears to God’s Mouth
On Tinnitus…and the Excess of Sense
Sounds of Solitude
Monody II
Clock
Tinnitus I
Bank of Virgins
There is No Ringing
This Morning
In Therapy Today
Hold a Seashell
Tinnitus Sonnet
ShadowBox: Pandora Within
A Certain Sense of Quiet
Patience—For Judi
The Sentence
Just Like Beethoven
Aripiprazole
Tinnitus II
From My Ears to God’s Mouth
The Kingdom of Heaven is
Gentle silence…
Calming, subtle silence—
Butterfly-breath
Hummingbird alighting on emerald leaf—
Colors, colors, colors so
Quietly vivid that our
White rosebuds seem
Harshly, duskily grey.
The Kingdom of Heaven is
Dream-like wakening to
Gentle silence…,
Falling mist-like to
Tint my ears with
The voiceless Breath of God.
On Tinnitus…and the Excess of Sense
Today,
Bright metal bits—
Bearings, cogs, screws, bolts, brads—
Rattled through glass enclosures in
My ears
No cause,
No broken bones,
No overt symptom set,
No clear connection with the ears—
No cure
Alone
I sit beside
Windows embracing my
Garden, wait for deaf silences
To scream
Sleepless…
Nails pierce palmy
Flesh…muscles knot anger-
Webs…lips tremble and teeth bite back
Their shriek
i crave
faint echoes of
a feather kissing snow—
whispered half-caress of total
deafness….
How can
Anyone love
Furrows, fears, angered eyes,
Voice choked with rage, frustration…, one
Alone
I write
At midnight when
No other voices clang
Against raw, raucous raging in
Myself
I slept
Last night until
Late sunlight smoothed my eyes—
I slept in silence guarded by
My dreams
“If one
Just concentrates
On more important things,
One barely notices the sounds”—
yeah, right….
Sounds of Solitude
Sounds of solitude
Recede before hissed whispers -
An infant’s night cry?
Monody II
hightension humm obscures
bleak bare desert—
echoic sands
grit invisibly in dying winds
behind a waterfall
ceaseless-clacking
stainless-carbon crickets
rub-rub-rub raw
upon smooth shells pressed
against smoother skull
birds sweep overhead—
swirl whirl whistle
startlement—cloak rust-black
crowns of jutting oaks
I watch the silent swallow
through thick panes of glass
as he or she disgorges mud
presses knots of mud into
slow-growing swells of nests,
and hear its latent song
behind closed eyes
steam escapes purse-lipped—
vents hiss the heat
of deep volcanic fire
unseen and unallayed
I wrench antennae left and
right, up and down,
and the static shifts doubles and
redoubles until the night
glows white with snowdrifts
layering the dead
coffin-silent
satin-stars subside to
distant harmonies of welcoming
relief
Clock
2 AM it
wakens me insistent
stutter-clatter-chatter percolates
dissipates wool-wrapped dreaming worlds
shatters
me awake with
insistent stutter-clatter I start
awake heart hitch-threading head throbbing
2 AM-and-1 it
resides staccato in
pent breath I listen to soft
stealthy after-midnight-sleeping every-room
but one
it awaits me
there wakes me weakens only
as I calm listen settle slowly and revolve
in tandem
with its rhythmic
stichomythic tick-tock-tick-tock
to the stolid ticking in and through the room
that has no clock
Tinnitus I
somewhere behind me, inches
to the left, beyond deaf ears—
sussurrations etch my brain
Bank of Virgins
That’s what he said, I swear,
that’s what he said
right there
on channel five, prime time,
some faceless mouth
huckstering between
two episodes in an endless flow
of clatter:
“Bank of Virgins!”
I almost cracked my neck
snapping to attention, urging
traitor ears
(that so often fail
to hear
what is truly said) this time to slow
the patent chatter
and concentrate on syllable
and word: “Bank of Virgins!”
Unspeakable, unprintable
conjurations flooded me—
Would one wish to
deposit or withdraw? pay fees
for services? or merely charge and owe—
sexual shop now, pay later.
One more, I thought, and watched
his thin lips frame
the phrase—and caught
my error (simple enough). As I
heard “Bank of Virgins!”
and let my wild perversions fly,
another mundane “Van conversions!” echoed
from the TV trader.
There is No Ringing
There is no ringing in deep sleep,
In ghost dreams, twisted remnants,
Revenants of wide-waking pleas;
In hazy, hovering half-moments
Between sleep and waking,
Silent solitudes haunt, tempt—
Invite a permanent slake
Of pain…they whisper lies,
Promised end to serpent-scales,
Hisses, phantom ticks—they rise
To live for a single breath,
And then expire with a sigh
When waking nears. Their easy death
Confirms the conscious ringing’s seal
That follows sleep with roiling tread.
With waking come the peals;
There is no ringing in deep sleep.
This Morning
This morning the statics touched,
Curled upward and around
To meet an inch
Above my crown—
Encapsulate my head in
Electric roils.
This morning, too, the distant burr—
A child’s motored model plane,
A gardener’s half-
Disguised chainsaw—seemed
More violent, more
Imminent.
And this morning, the night-time
Tick-tick-tick of my silent clock
Roused me from dreams—
Tick-tick-tick—more rapid
Than frantic heartthrob
That fevered blood
Wildly pulsing
In Therapy Today
In therapy today I learned
to say
ashamed
embarrassed
envious
and see…
ghosts haunting web-hung rafters
trapped for memories like
flies flesh-wrapped and plump
pumping life-blood to fang-flames
ashamed
ghosts lining dim-stretched halls
palled with pale shades of fear
sheer and biting, waiting on the joke
the poke the laugh the harrassment
embarrassed
ghosts unborn infiltrating joys—
toys taut-wound and tense
pretense unveiled and bitter loss
tossed unnoticed to dead dust
envious
I see…
In therapy today I learned
to say
Hold a Seashell
Hold a sea
s
h
e
l
l
to your ear
And you’ll hear
[they said]
The ocean’s roar
The seagull’s breathy soar
Inside your head
And
So
I did
And hid
My coiled sea-s
h
e
l
l between
Two gritty palms
And listened for unfettered psalms
Of seafroth
Seasounds
* * * * *
and now they roil
in stately coil
within the bony s
h
e
l
l
tear
of my head
and I would wish again the grating sand
and
curling surf outside, beyond
my head
Tinnitus Sonnet
I sit to write a sonnet —sssssssssssssssssss—a
Sonnetsssssssssssssssssonnet and words
refuse, ducking beneath a stuttering, cluttering
ghost that hags my neural channelssssssssssss
clots thoughts and crackles — crackcrackcrack—
raises mental hackles and the poem that
was to be dissipatessssssssssssssssssss I wrack
and rend, curse, weep, contend —buzzzzzzzzzz—
I sit to—small nails in glass swirlingtinkling
chinkingtinkling— sit to write a sssssssssss
sssssssssssssss— PAUSE. BREATHE. PAUSE.
Mozart? sssssssss MozArt? —ringwas that the tele
gggggggggggggggggggggggggggg—God!
{no imprecation but a prayer}
ShadowBox: Pandora Within
When she reached her hand to touch the box,
A whim, a curiosity to see what gift
Might follow fire, she felt a clutch of fear
As if the gods’ fell decree already
Had the power to quell all hope before
Mortal-kind was forced to cope with ills.
I reach toward my private box of shadows
And feel the premonition shake my core,
Knowing the predestined shocks must come
But feeling still that stillborn quake of hope
She must have felt…the pent-up hitch of breath
Before the flying furies pitch me down.
And for that instant, I would too withdraw,
Live in ignorance of fire if that
Would spare me from the ills pursuing me;
Indeed, withdraw my hand, retire untried,
Within the shadow-box content to live,
And not reveal the furies pent within.
A Certain Sense of Quiet
A certain sense of quiet stalks
The hours after midnight;
The desultory, muted sound of talk
And laughter dies,
Replaced by—not a silence—but
A stillness deep as time,
A stillness formed of unshaped sounds cut
To voiceless mime.
It is this quiet I desire
Each hour of each day—
The hollow quiet filled with echoed fire
Ashen grey.
Patience—For Judi
At night, when daylight fails, with sounds diminished
to breath beyond mere nothingness; when lives,
like light, cast no more shades, but are replenished
by shadow-death of sleep; when conscience-knives
lie blunted by the body’s sharp fatigue,
and hopes transform to gossamer in dreams—
then and then and then…the inner dig
begins. A buzz. A ring. A shallow stream
of non-poetic susurrations wrap
the pillowcase in wakefulness. Sleep
retires the field in defeat, trapped
in ceaseless sounds that, spy-like, twist and seep
by corners…to be vanquished only through
the voice and touch of one enduring You.
The Sentence
Today—a deaf sentence. Not
unexpected perhaps but
still a pause—a beat—a
harsh intake—before
breath resumed. It is
logarithmic (she
explained) this ebb of
sound and rushing flow of
tidal static-distant
bird-cry, anguished
echoes of whine-pitched
engines, scraping shovels on
stone-dry sidewalks, frantic
tick-tick-tick of some
retarded clock that
knows not tock. All
rhythmic ebb and flow
inexorable encroachment on
the continent of
mind.
No respite
either—chemical
messengers and neural
stimulators that race from
cochlea to brain—that
might be slowed—restrained—
stopped in pell-mell
progress on nerve-track
courses—these also share the
silks with lightning
riders from pulsing
heart and stringent spinal
cord—to rein one is
to rein them all.
So.
Just Like Beethoven
, they said (at least all
but one were right to that degree—the one
referred to “Mozart,” but I will give full
credit for coming close)—as if to shame
mute agonies for deafness—as if mere
comparison of me to Beethoven
would suffice to…somehow…help recover
equilibrium and pride in playing
an instrument that I will never hear
fully, completely, upper ranks of flutes,
diapasons, trumpets—as if to share
my skill with his and find the vaster truth
that while we may divide deafness and loss,
his talent was of gold—mine, but of dross.
Aripiprazole
Words grow hauntingly,
Roll half-tauntingly from the mind
Where once, not long ago,
Image poured and metaphor
Fused meaning with high passion—
And also darkled shadows, fear, and dread.
Instead of rocket highs and
Depth-plumbed lows,
Widely barren plains, unbroken now
By crest or depth, unfurrowed in the
Lassitude of listlessness,
Numbed and dumbed and stilled.
To walk is easier thus.
Each step-by-step level and unruffled.
Horizons no longer loom. Twilights
Linger until the moon herself sleeps settled.
And dawn creeps slowly on until she
Merges unbeknownst with noon.
And thus it is. And is. And is.
And whether that is good,
I do not know.
Tinnitus II
By the silence
I will know when I
Lie dead
All poems copyright (c) 2010 Michael R. Collings
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
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