A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A great hope fell, you heard no noise.
Here, where cicadas once chirred, no noise.
Can you sense the rats in the bedroom walls?
The cat drags in a mangled bird, no noise.
Something cracks, then a thud on the roof.
A sound of heaving. Afterward, no noise.
A stupor of pain descends on the house.
Your drunken words slurred—no, noise.
Can a hangover last a month or more?
On one thing we both concurred: no noise.
A clamor of insects, a rustle of leaves.
You cry, “Shut up! Not a word! No noise!”
Three things: first, oppressive heat;
second, a slight prickliness; third, no noise.
An alarm peals out, shrill as a scream.
You open an eye, dreams interred. No noise.
Hear the remains of midnight in your blood?
Remember when you preferred no noise?
Scott Wiggerman is the author of two books of poetry, Presence and Vegetables and Other Relationships, and the editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises& Practice in Poetry. He is chief editor for Dos Gatos Press in Austin, Texas, publisher of the Texas Poetry Calendar, now in its sixteenth year.