Noise

This is a very short poem about disgust.

Noise.  Black, sick, noise.

I can’t sleep because of it. 

Your words pour from me in a cold sweat.

I visit the doctor, “I’m burning up.”

Fingers invade my skin and he tells me

“nothing.”  But I can feel you in me.

Your infectious noise, thick mucus

muting my vocal cords.

 

And I return to nights broken out in hives,

a deep churning in my stomach.

Rising from bed, purging your lies

from my blood into empty pipes.

________

For Eliza

Reviews

[Wórdsmíth]

The thoughts`re flown to the edges of heart with love---The thoughts of "emptiness". Nice imagery.

[TLK]

You turn the noise into lies in the end. This retrospectively makes sense of the infection, of the sweat, of needing the doctor (I'm not sure if it explains the mucous, though). I don't find noise to equal lies very easily, so I wonder whether this piece would be even firmer on its feet if they were identified as lies throughout.

This has the feeling of a prose poem, and I wonder whether it would look better without the line breaks. That's certainly how I read it the second and third times.