I found my calling in backgrounds,
and replicating the noises
only noticed when they’re absent.
My sleight of hand is often found
behind creaks of creeps on old stairs;
that’s me pulling nails from fresh planks.
The sound of rain falling in films
is bacon being fried up close.
I made lunch today, it poured down
and I couldn’t tell the difference.
The mundane gives drama root notes:
a guillotined neck gets its voice
from a cleaver through a cabbage.
Hams hang on a hook to be punchbags
and put their heft behind fistfights.
A lion’s roar enhances car chases
and flapped gloves make the swooping sounds
from birds of prey about to kill,
but birdsong’s only ever birds
being themselves. I’ll drive for days
to record the correct species.
What noises can empty rooms make
when no one’s there to record them?
This keeps me awake every night.
Just last night I thwacked a dead cow
in the ribs with a cricket bat,
and I know my motives were sound.
I love that last line – still chuckling!
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Thank you Lesley. I must say (and want to) how much I love your poem too
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Great work, this. My hat’s off.
This morning I heard an unfamiliar hummbuzz under the kitchen sink, from where no such noise (or any) had ever come before. Was that you, just goofin on me or what?
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Thanks Ron. Yes, it was me. Sorry. The acoustics under your sink are too good to pass up.
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It seems to me the last three or four poems here have been exceptionally good!
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These are the poems that were meant to be published in January but got delayed! As always, we can only publish what we are sent – the credit goes to the poets.
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And thoroughly deserved.
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I’d be inclined to go back even further…
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Excellent.
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