I dwell within a vault of seasoned pine,
Where cedar ribs trace curves of spine,
A cavern arched with honey-colored wood,
The quietest home a creature ever could.
Above my head, a rosette carved in lace,
Filters the daylight into one small space,
A golden circle painted on the floor,
Where giant fingers stretch and start to soar.
Then wakes the giant—sweeping arm and hand,
Striking the chords above this hidden land;
And every wire becomes a brazen beam,
Shaking the rafters of my hollow dream.
The notes crash down like thunder from the sky,
Making the air vibrate, the dust motes fly,
A tidal wave of brass and silver sound,
That pins me softly to the maple ground.
And when they rest their palms against the waist,
The roaring ocean dies in breathless haste;
I curl up warm beneath the bridge’s arc,
A tiny tenant sleeping in the dark.
ACOUSTIC STRUCTURES
sobering
patterned
casualties
so
fascinatingly
aesthetical
in
manifold
shapes
stimulate
speculative
applications
identically
conceived
with
multiple
meanings
convincingly
clustered
subjectively
thus
enlarging
spirals
The tremolo of mourning jays vibrates
In bittersweet tracks when nightfall scans
An almost dim backdrop, gripped
By low warbles from birds' paean
Indistinct as dusty tunes--a whip, wallop
A whistle of drones becomes
dangerous and still;
Throaty on a lane of funeral's last rites:
The hazily drawn view turns ambient...
it is another blasted evening
Moistening wail of eyes with monotone lull
that I hide my face
from past autumnal romps
reminding me of chimes, soft cuddles
pressed in heavenly light...I whisper
to a young silhouette now cradled
By the starkest of blue stars...
Tunes stale,
while jays moan on the horizon, until...
we long for rain
when the sun sabotages the silence,
suffocating the calm of skies ~
as breeze stays not where it should…
~ warmth feels near, until it isn’t ~
kissing the seas
in ripples of rose-ritual highs…
while these eyes…
keep searching,
wanting,
your flame beyond the skin of soul,
that tickles thought through
the tremors of time, O time ~
shifting what is known into uncertainty…
succumb to my musk of softness
when dreams refuse to listen,
and touch becomes distant,
melt into my pulse,
warm, woven lies,
taste this fall, evermore…
I'm five and it's a fire-dive -
sweaty-skinned and flambé-limbed,
kindling tingling in my throat,
matches scratching sandpaper skin.
Lying on the terracotta velour settee
watching sparky scenes igniting the room -
a terracotta army of sparks
marching through the grate,
grating like bars on the old forest gate,
black bars of night growing tall on the wall
and I'm always up against it
hearing echoes of the ethereal eternal
Help us help us we'll help you...
I want to be well, to enter the well
cooling the heat and heart of the house,
dousing bouquets of firelight
petals flickering on amber glass bottles of medicine,
her hooked hands feeding me aspirin, penicillin,
cream and green torpedo tablets
fever-spearing, strobing swirling the room.
Now nightshade creepers spine-twine in dark dreams
black echoes build on a sonograph screen
descending into the no-way-out well,
the inescapable hell of not well.
Muffled mutterings
gibber refrains of madness
in my twisted ears.
As the fog rises from the creek
And dampness permeates
A truck speedily emerges
Shocking mind's concentrates
Out on the porch in this dense fog
Surrounded in moisture
Nature's voices silent apparently
This quiet annoys her
One more truck emerges from the fog
Then a muffled high-pitched
Sound, like a tire with a small leak
I looked around then switched
Through the heavy fog faintly see
Jet plane flying too low
I thought my hearing was about gone
To my eyes a long blow
Then totally out of my thoughts
I realize the fog caused
The plane to fly low and the sound
High pitched that brought my pause
The light from the heavens
Shifts and settles,
Casting moving silhouettes.
In the quiet darkness,
Limbs clung to the night,
Sounds mingling with laughter
As delicate threads began to snap.
Moonlight streamed through the windows
When everyone sleeps in dreams—
Some strange, unsettling—some not
While the cold, heavy air hangs
The night holds its breath.
Life goes on, with faint echo sounds
Drifting through the still air.
Silence answers before I ask
only silence answering my fear
something is near but never fully arrives
moving through spaces I cannot name
I don’t know what you are
but you know me too well
like hearing a name through a closed door I cannot open
your presence reaches me late
like a truth delayed in the body
you stand where certainty should be
yet I only catch fragments of you
half-formed, shifting without sound
never staying long enough to confirm
even your shape feels borrowed from distance
returning differently each time
I reach for what you are becoming
but meaning keeps slipping past me
and still you remain everywhere
without ever arriving fully
He was a loud spirit slinking down the hall
Haunting you hear it the loudest quiet talk
Neither friend nor foe just a void in the air
Seems to have been yet is definitely there
Stealing the air from the room like a tomb
His presence isn’t soothing nor should it doom
Sticking to the corners and avoiding light
More powerful there and in the bowels of night
Some say he was a soul from years ago
That a horrific tragedy torments his soul
Doing no harm in his dark pitiful form
He is like a ghoul devoid of any charm
Even this poor thing has a purpose
A cautionary tale told to serve us
In the waning twilight zone outside my window,
opening to the tone of the chromatic horizon,
the sky resonates with the last timbre of glorious glow
of the sun setting at the edge of the indigo night.
Its cascading cadence composes your eloquent expression
with the turquoise touch of sensuous splendor,
I configure in my reverberating heart
as the echoing shade of our togetherness.
The lone candle of my life I then see flicker
with faint intonation in the darkness of night.
In its resonant reflection in your mirror I find
the lilting trace of my yearning on your face.
In its glow within my love’s spellbound outline,
framed at the base of the whispering candle,
you recognize the tune of my velvet presence,
where you sense me still in sonorous silhouette.
I listen to the guitar strings play
as my heart runs laps around my mind
There's deep loss, pain, darkness of its kind
It lingers outside the window until it moves with the sun
I can't hear the music, only tear drops on the table top
They're dripping into blackness on the floor behind the chair
Will these teardrops be the last fallen for you?
It has been so many years, oh so many tunes!
My heart is still strumming a guitar playing memories
leaving patches on this road in my rear view!
Heidi Sands
4/13/26
(C)opyright
A haunting rustle continues to stir,
imprisoned by a restless ghost I cant deter.
Becoming a relentless hiss of a punctured tire,
to the blazing crackle of a funeral pyre.
When the world is loud, it can try to hide,
as my brain is otherwise occupied.
When the world rests and there is no noise,
this perfect silence, my mind destroys.
Waterfalls that never hit the rocks below.
Unbearable phantom sounds plateau.
As the cadence quickens to a frantic hum,
while a fury of cicadas pulse like a drum.
Invading the desperate hollows of my mind,
it’s insanely incessant, torturously entwined.
There’s no sanctuary from this discordance of sound.
A tempest of delirium down to a snake’s rattle abound.
Streaming water from the shower, a noise I dread.
Nobody at home, its all in my head.
Suffering tinnitus is a lifelong affliction,
Every waking hour a curse, a malediction.
When will I enjoy silence and my sanity restore?
The Raven answered "Nevermore"
Acoustic Shadows 4-8-26 Craig Cornish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Acoustic Shadows
As screen doors slam an audible footprint of sound
Echoes in phonics of ice in glasses
And tinkling bells of ice cream trucks.
The solstice ripens
Growing large in the splash of rainbirds
And telltale whirr of hummingbirds at feeders
As humidity buzzes, the breath of summer’s envoys
Sound out a boneless resonance
With chords that tease and tantalize
Alluring in fleeting notes hatching hazy inklings.
Haunting memories of a solstice oratorio renewed,
Veiled in the caress of a mirage,
Reverberate in noisy shimmers of Luna’s fullness.
Ripples of ghostly illusions speak in clues
Like bards of déjà vu
When sounds trickle down furrows of skin and soil
Leaving hints that foreshadow dusky shades
Recalling the hum of warmth in cold bones
And cues that foretell of the season of crickets.
The memory of your voice
bounces off barricades I've built in my mind
It pinballs around the rooms of my heart
looking for a vacant space that will listen
Dinging unheard bells, rerouted by
little plastic swinging gates
Bumping blindly into walls
You'll never find a way in again
Anything you scream now
only lands, quiet as a moth-dusty and pale
on closed ears
The most ghostly earth exhale
could not deliver, to the deepest parts of me
what it is you want to say
That voice. I sent it to the fires long ago
And planted an ocean all around
to keep it contained
I am far away now, calmly cool, refreshed by freedom
With every clean inhale
I sail closer to the silent horizon
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