clatter-claws scratching drum skins.
Pigeons are the worst. Rose bushes sit quietly all summer
then only after they have lost their heads
do they squeak and squawk all night.
Dry joints crunch down - listening synovial cartilages
stick shift and slip out of gear.
There is the slap-smacking juggle of junk mail
as it flaps its paper wings and falls.
Some sounds remind of…
Dead-spaces clambering up a back wall,
chicken bones rattling on a tin roof,
or deranged harpsichords
goading the moon to shake its yellow faced tambourine.
Some sounds are knuckles cracking under cliffs of silence.
Sleep prods woke ribs till the breaking dawn.
Clatter claws cascade downward into listening drums.
Pigeons are the worst. Rose bushes sit quietly all summer
then only after they have lost their heads
do they scratch and squark nightly.
Toilets that are not in your home haunt and taunt.
Dry joints crunch down - listening synovial cartilages
stick shift and slip out of gear.
There is the jack-hammer juggling of junk mail
as it flaps its paper wings and falls untidily.
Sometimes dreams climb over the hedgerow,
clamber up a back wall, and then hollow bones play
upon the rooftop - deranged harpsichords
goad a hungry moon to howl for something dead.
Knuckles crack under a sheer cliff of silence.
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