Noise in my world
gets louder, harsher, nearer,
assails, buffets, intrudes my senses
pricks my skin.
My switched-on television
transmogrifies its one grey eye
to brighter-than-rainbow pictures,
flash-cards for impact not reflection.
Prime time costs. Loud music agitates
a spurious emotion, voices shout anger,
laugh on cue, use drama like a club,
sensationalise the book.
Reading is quiet.
I snailed my way from school
book open on splayed hands
tracing the words on silent fingers,
finding thoughts there
to shake my soul for ever,
the involvement mine.
Now books snap angrily at me
from over-loaded pages,
hit me with unresolvable discord
and specious anger,
stamp on my thinking
in loud aggressive statement.
Sensations I don't seek
shake my wound-up world
discord from car-blocked streets,
frenzied shipping, musak the loud sell.
Noise as punishment,
none of it mixing.