…come to haunt or reassure.
by Dave Skipper

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I’ve written a number of poems on this blog. I rather enjoy penning them, but one recurring issues irks me: too much rhyming and too much swerving into approximately metrical metres (is that two issues?). Free verse, cut-up style, stream of consciousness – these would surely befit the aesthetics of noise far more appropriately! Anyway, it is what it is, seems I can’t help myself, so far at least. So here’s another one…

A smell or a sound
Absent from mind
Suddenly reappears
An ancient find

A seagull’s screech
A doorbell ringing
Primary school children
Shouting, screaming, singing

A buzzing lawnmower
A cricket bat
Creaking floorboards above –
Who was that?

A hurricane whistling down the chimney stack
An abandoned kitten’s lonely pine
A deranged midnight scream from the street outside
A pop song or lullaby from 1989 [or 1979, or 1969, or…]

Rekindling feelings
From childhood days
Distant time revisited
Returning in a haze

Far dreaming
A memory stirs
A rush of emotion
But the picture blurs

Bittersweet
     Nostalgic charm
Or only bitter
     Suppressed harm
Bittersweet
     Wistful longing
Or only bitter
     Never belonging

A jumble of flashbacks
Kaleidoscopic sensations
Dizzying artifacts artistically arrayed
In artificially architectural abstracted accentuations

Relief supplied as past trauma denied?
Or the pain too much to bear?
Noise tentacles inexorably infiltrate
Within, without, everywhere

Just out of reach
Straining to retell
Can’t put my finger
On exactly what befell

These partial recollections
All smeary round the edges
Remind me of time’s pull
On my present-only existence

Jumbled details
     Forgotten whispers
          Errors creep in
          As I enter deeper in
     To forgotten vistas
And accuracy fails

It’s an exercise in noisification
Some memories more, some less
Shuffling through the crinkles in my mind
Trying to make sense of this mess

The emotional charge of noises revisited
Further ‘noised-up’ by the fading crackle of time
Vinyl scratches, sepia tones
Nothing remains in straight lines

Obfuscating, obscuring
     Frustrating or alluring
Deceiving, manipulating
     Depressing or elating
Clouding, smudging
     Eluding or nudging
Distorting, twisting
     Embracing or resisting
Editing, revising
     Recalling or surmising
Fading, masking
     Yearning or basking

Welcome
Not welcome
Welcome
Not welcome
Noise is a gift, a blessing
Noise is a burden, a curse
Noise is memory and memory is noise
Whether for better or worse…

(If you enjoyed this poem, you can read more of my poems here.)

DEPARTMENT PAGE FOR THIS SERIES: BEAUTY IN NOISE
PREVIOUS ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES: Alien Creosote
NEXT ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES: Pylons and Cicadas