citysong

have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon? i haven't. nor have i ever been awakened by a crowing cock at the crack of dawn or listened quietly to the wind whispering through the willows.

i have, on the other hand, been subjected to four letter words flung angrily from passing cars, woken to the crack of gunshots at 2 a.m. and listened impatiently to the clamoring of the L train rolling through my neighborhood.

the unceasing sounds of the city serve as ever present reminders of the inexhaustible force of life coursing through every street, skyscraper and subway tunnel. these same sounds, over time, have become meaningless white noise that i tune out, thereby ceasing to acknowledge the humanity that surrounds me. i plug my ears with headphones to block out the din and have in turn come to ignore the quiet cries for help all around me.

the homeless man on the corner is just a soundless simulacrum on the sidewalk, the bag lady in the park the star of a silent film. the raffish middle schoolers smoking cigarettes behind the school no longer elicit even a shake of my head, but instead have become an accepted part of the moving scenery.

i long to escape this cacophonous conurbation, not with permanence, but simply for a time, to find proper perspective and ultimately to regain an amplified awareness of each note in the city's ceaseless song.

a sound and a silence

There was a time when I used to hear it. It was promising, hopeful, bright and sunshiny, and I heard it all the time. But not anymore. Something happened. I moved. Opportunities came and went. Relationships and interests faded out. Now there's just a profound silence, a deep stillness and I can't tell if it's peace or deadness, if everything's right or if everything's wrong and I just can't distinguish the two any longer.

Sometimes I think I hear it, every now and then, in the morning or for a day or two. But I'm not really sure. I make things up sometimes. It could just be that I want to hear it, and so I start thinking that I do. You can do that, you know; if you want something bad enough, you can trick yourself into thinking that you actually have it. But you don't. I'm not sure if that's an ingenious coping mechanism, or just sad.

Anyway, like I said, sometimes I think I hear it again, and it still has the same sweetness, the rapturous melody of a sparkling future. I get lost in it. But it's not a passive lostness, rather, it drives me to action. I'm on steroids when I hear it. It oils the gears in my head and my confidence swells, not in arrogance, but simply because hearing it makes confidence inevitable. You know, if you've heard it.

I haven't heard it much lately, but that's ok. Either you hear it or you don't. I suspect some people never hear it at all. And the silence isn't that bad, really. You get used to it. You can get used to anything. The silence isn't very exciting, but it does seem safe.

I wonder sometimes, though, where it went. I don't even remember when it left. It was just gone, like it got up in the middle of the night and snuck out in stocking feet. I've searched for it. I've tried different settings and listening postures. I've done the dance. It's pretty elusive, though, when it wants to be.

So I don't really look anymore. I've come to terms with my subpar aural detective skills. I have better things to do. At least, that's what I tell myself. And I'm not worried. It'll come back, I'm sure. I can't remember why I know that, maybe it told me as I slept, before it tiptoed away; and it'll probably come back sometime I don't expect, like on a windy day with lots of dead leaves, taking me off guard, but I won't be surprised. Hope does that, it makes surprise unsurprising, but it doesn't ruin the surprise. So I look forward to it...

Second Prompt

Write about a noise -
or a silence -
that won't go away.