NaPoWriMo Day 27: White noise

Hi, I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April.  

For Day 27, the optional prompt was to write a poem in the form of a review, of something that isn’t normally reviewed. I failed on this, but have a go.

Today I haven’t followed the prompt. I couldn’t get to sleep until gone 4am and then I woke around 8am, so I’m pretty tired. The brain is slow and something tells me I’m going to konk out in the afternoon after a very short day! We all know the frustration of not being able to sleep. Ironically, I watched the film Insomnia last night (the Al Pacino version, although I’d like to watch the original). So, here’s a poem about the sound that kept me awake last night.

White noise

Time trickles past three-thirty

And all I want to do is sleep

This hand on my shoulder

Won’t let me go

There’s a distant hum

It isn’t an animal breathing out

But a man-made thing pulsating

All the birds have nested down

Even the sun is slumbering

The trees have twisted inside

Hugging their blankets of foliage

Restless

Is this white noise

The heartbeat of the world?

It pumps an even dull tread

Walking in and waking silence

The body reacts to every echo

Of sound, every magnetic

Impulse

Stuck in eternal night shade

We exist in limbo

Hours and hours and hours

It cuts a knife through quiet

Hear it breathe in

Exhale

This white noise fanning out

Until it absorbs everything.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 27 2020