Silence? (20th June 2008, 11.08am)
The silence echoes with the sound of whispers;
faintly, the sound of music drifts across the desks
and giggles held deep under escape from breaths;
I could take a guess, look up and pinpoint culprits,
shame by name, the usual suspects, see their
repeated surprise at being caught; they think
they’re subtle. Pens click, pencils tap, feet scrape
across metal desk-legs, squeak, squeak, like
a piece of chalk down the blackboard makes one
cringe; it’s been ten years and still the sound
lingers in my pierced ears, amongst the old
familiar things. Through the division wall,
the rise and fall of booming teacher-talk drifts
across the paper-swish of turning pages and
the fluttering, butterfly silence of concentration.
Comments
Ewan | June 20, 2008 - 17:42
Mmmm. Lot's of nice stuff in this, Jen.
'the rise and fall of booming teacher talk'
'the fluttering,butterfly silence of concentration.'
It's just a very noisy silence, isn't it? I appreciate that perhaps that's the point. (Hence the question mark, no?) However, can you start the poem off with 'The silence...'? It lays down the marker, tells us (I believe) that what we are talking about is a silence. Don't know... hope you know what I mean. I would be tempted to try...
'the vacuum echoes with...etc'
Just ignore all above if it makes no sense.
Regards, as always,
Ewan
Dynamaso | June 21, 2008 - 03:43
You've obviously spent a lot of time in this situation, as this more than capably shows. Ewan has already picked out my two favourite lines.
I remember being part of the noise in this silence very well.