NOISE

Everyone is talking.

But the words mean nothing.

Mindless, meaningless, harmless

noise.

Words spilling out like water from a spigot.

Forced laughter.

Hopeless blather.

It all sticks to me like algae.

Everyone is talking.

Verbalizing every thought.

Every minor, miniscule, microsophallic

neural transmission.

Flying out of the larynxes, into

the air, onto my skin, like

stucco onto a house.

This is not the first you’ve heard of this complaint,

nor will it be the last,

but it seems everyone is too busy talking

in order to really say it.

Did Shakespeare speak in such

trivialities?

Or Freud, Chaucer, Frost or Pope?

Would gaudy generalities have

issued from Moses’s mighty throat?

Cliches and chatter, vacuous banter

have polluted the air too long.

Urbane and lucid dialogue sounds now

like a bird’s sweet spring song.

I hope one day soon the noise stops

and I won’t have to cover my ears

and we can all talk in voices

that would bring the angels

to joyous tears.

April 1, 2014