Silent Cacophony
To finish her work and to honour my love
who now dwells forever in heaven above
It’s something that I am committed to do
to bring her invention to each one of you
She worked for a doctorate and a degree
to be the inventor she so longed to be
To bring forth the tiniest sounds to our ears
the sounds of near silence that nobody hears
Convinced that we’ve all missed the utter delight
of whispers and murmurs so soft in the night
She set out to amplify sounds that slip by
like lenses that show infra-red to the eye
She’d found ways to listen to daffodils humming
ironic that she never heard the bus coming
Today though, I think I’ve completed her task
I’ll test the device, it’s not a big ask
I smile at her urn on my stone mantle shelf
then switch on the switch that she should switch herself
I watch the display as it seeks out a sound
the readout says “SEARCHING” and then it says “FOUND”
Cacophonous melee, a room full of sound
the creepings and crawlings of life all around
From under the carpet and inside the walls
but then a faint voice as it urgently calls
The direction finder I cautiously turn
to find that the voice emanates from her urn
I cover my ears as I hear my love shout,
“Where am I, it’s dark, let me out, let me out!”
*
I run from the house, the device still switched on
I can’t bear her screams but I don’t want her gone
I try to ignore, as I beat my retreat
the howls and the screeches from beneath my feet
The horrified squealing of insects in flight
as oncoming windshields appear in their sight
Two snails in the road emit stereo squeals
and race from the path of a truck driver’s wheels
The sounds of a slaughter will not let me pass
the terrified lawn as a man mows his grass
Inside his house as his wife makes a salad
a lettuce cries out like a Halloween ballad
A boy with an apple then freezes mid-munch
as the apple cries out, “I don’t want to be lunch!”
And still my love’s voice calling all of the while
I have no recourse but to rotate the dial
But now I hear curses which just seems absurd
as they hail from a worm in the beak of a bird
Everywhere, everything living in fear
fear that as humans we’re not meant to hear
My sanity calls for precision and luck
and the pending arrival of that speeding truck
The sonic device booms its ear splitting wails
as it waits for the truck beside two speeding snails
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