Bus arms
Latched onto wires
Making a clicking noise
Passing over notches
Conversations
At the bus stop
And in line
For the bakery
Shouts
From transients
Usually at night
Sirens
At first farther off
And then closer
Louder
Sometimes much louder
On our street
Passing by
Quickly
Running the stop light
Honks
From non-emergency vehicles
Just upset about traffic
Or telling a driver ahead
To look up
And go
Through the green light
The garbage man
Picking up cans
From the curb
With his truck arm
And shaking them
Like maracas
The wine bar
Across the street
With live music
On the weekends
The rain
On the fire escape
The cement street
And the glass window
Pattering
Category: Sound
Sleep in the city
I take a bite of the sidewalk and fall back between the cracks. Is it still vipassana then? If my mind is not allowed to wander any farther than the sirens and bus stop conversations outside the window we’ve left open. It’s too hot. So we have to choose each night, between sweating through our sheets, and opening the window to noise that even ear plugs with a 33 NRR can’t block out. We have ice packs in the freezer. I can wrap one of these in an old t-shirt and get my temperature low enough to at least fall sleep. By midnight, sometimes before, the ice pack is melted. So the window gets opened eventually. And then the same choice: to fight the noise, pull the pillow around my ears, and try not to hear; or meditate on the chaos. I cannot do this successfully. Some primal part of me cannot forget that loud noises mean danger. And my writer’s mind has a hard time hearing conversations without listening to the words being said. I try not to judge. I try to just notice. But I still miss the pitch black silent nights in Montana.
Clogged shower drain
I turn the shower to cold, briefly, and then off. Standing in water up to my ankles, I turn and face the white shower curtain. Watching water drip from my nose into the pool gathered around my feet, I wait to dry. Standing thus, waiting, I remember my girlfriend hates it when I leave the drain clogged—this being the cause of the water up to my ankles. It’s my fault, really; being my hair, mostly, that clogs the drain. I reach down and scrape my fingernails along the edges of the indented mesh gate that covers the drain—this produces a mess of hair the size of a small mouse. Then the water really starts to drain. I resume my former position with my chin against my chest, holding the mouse, water dripping from the tip of my nose with slightly less frequency. The water line recedes down the slope of my foot. The drain makes a sound like rain in a gutter. I am caught up in hearing this and not much else. There is no other pressing concern, waiting to dry. The water finishes draining. There is no noise now; not the shower, nor the draining. It is over then. I prepare myself to pull back the curtain and find something else to do.
Nothing becomes something
One song
Without sound
And a painting
Without color
Dares you to look deep
Into the void
And press your ear
To the glass ceiling
Where you might hear
A white noise
Which seems at first
To be nothing
Listen long enough
And see
How nothing
Becomes something
Birds
I hear birds
And my heart lifts
Even though
They’re on the other side
Of a close door
And the clouds
Outside the window
Are dark today
My heart still lifts
Hearing the birds
midnight mass
I learn as much
Laying up at night
Listening to
The radiator wheeze
And the fridge whrr
And baby’s soft breathing
As I ever have
Up and about
Out in the day
Listening to words
Spoken with some
Supposed meaning
That I’ve
Yet to grasp
silent sheet
I put my ear
To the sheets
And listen
To the silent rustle
That says shh
All else
Is outside
Nonsense
And absurd
Far away
From here
Sounds that keep me up
Outside the wind howls
Cars go by
Some shouts from who knows
Inside the radiator whistles
The fridge whirs
The walls creak from the wind
Sheets rustle—
These are the sounds
That keep me up
left ear louder
i feel a little off center
like my left ear lags
my right hearing louder
leaking out sound somehow
past the bud before the drum
i take out my AirPods
and case them to check
but upon re-inserting
realize it is just me
washing my hands
shaking my hands
washed
spattering drops
in the metal basin
making music
rain
all at once
stop
then spatter
and start again
wind radio
instead
of the radio
i prefer
a little wind
whipping through
the car window
barely cracked
dead quiet night in the city
in the dead quiet
of the night
i feel so awake
and out of place
while everything else
is so dead
and there’s nothing
not even
the neighbors
to talk
or the cars outside
to go by
standing in the wind
standing
with my back
to the wind
pant legs
flapping
leaning back
just a little
hands
in my pockets
sound
wooshing by
my ears
waiting
to warm up
between gusts
floor creaks
the floor creaks
clearly
when no one
else
is home
to hear