Noise has never killed anyone.
Struck by thunder
is merely a heart
beating faster than usual.
Silence, on the other hand —
struck by lightning
is struggling
to keep that same heart pulsating.
Noise is firecrackers;
remove the decibels
and it’s hollow through and through.
Silence is a needle:
easy in,
quick closure.
It’ll take a lot more than sticks and stones
and marrow-hollowed bones.
It’ll take a lot more than whispers and charades
and rose-tinted princess parades.
It’ll take a lot more than matchsticks and gasoline
and brains shrink-wrapped in cellophane.
It’ll take a lot more than paper straws and a misplaced Plath,
and air-conditioned fits of rehearsed wrath.
It’ll take a lot more than black lipstick and kohl-eyed sighs,
and rebellion stitched into readymade ties.
It’ll take a lot more than revolutions sold as grocery,
and trauma repackaged as ancestral sorcery.
It’ll take a lot more than pastel scratches and iced teas,
and flightless birds and headless bees.
It’ll take a lot more than borrowed rage
sold in café lights,
and fashionable bruises mistaken for fights.
It’ll take a lot more than all of those and a frown,
to drown a thing that survived learning how to drown.
Back when elephants grew on trees
and holy cows ruled the ill-lit jungles,
there lived a crow, who’d caw through days and nights
like cawing was the only thing she was made of.
She cawed at the cows,
and the monkeys,
and the pigeons,
and the leopards,
and they all turned away,
because that is how the jungle learned to treat noise without teeth.
The crow thought otherwise though;
elated how every soul in the jungle was terrified of her.
She was a magician, and fear was her sleight of hand.
Then one afternoon,
she cawed at a wolf.
She cawed, and cawed, and cawed,
and followed it too far to turn back.
And when she finally ran out of distance,
the wolf held her by the throat
and kept chewing at her silence
while her eyes stayed open.
Oh darling, I’m a romantic.
I love you
like the constitution loves its criminals,
like pesticides love writhing worms.
I love you
like a butcher’s knife loves flesh.
Press against me hard enough
and I’ll watch you drain out of yourself.
Oh darling, I’m a romantic.
Stain me
and I’ll dry-clean you
on a rope strung oblique.
If faiths decided the virtue of believers,
and intentions were defined by revolutions,
if ideas were enough to civilise instinct,
every religion would function
with more consistency
than quantum fucking physics.
I heard someone once say, "the angry have a visible epiglottis", in the name of poetry
and I thought to myself, what a waste of words to throw up unadulterated bullcrap!
A visible epiglottis isn’t poetic,
merely anatomy.
If anger were a measure of righteous,
matchsticks would arbitrate justice.
If screams could weigh casualties,
autopsy rooms would be the loudest.
An epiglottis is as much an epiphany
as a shrunken ball-sac;
worth a thought when functional,
and an embarrassing metaphor
when it mistakes imitation for origin.
A visible epiglottis isn’t poetic,
merely anatomy.
If anger were a measure of righteous,
matchsticks would arbitrate justice.
If screams could weigh casualties,
autopsy rooms would be the loudest.
An epiglottis is as much an epiphany
as a shrunken ball-sac;
worth a thought when functional,
and an embarrassing metaphor
when it mistakes imitation for origin.
