Hubbub

Amongst my brain’s circuitry
and conscious lucidity,
are crepuscular spaces
invaded by voices
of the unborn and half-fledged.
Poetic words worm and edge,
scritch-scratching senses
into phrases and sentences;
ragged nightmares and dreams
into outfits with hems and seams;
proper poems with lines and stanzas;
sonnets draped with velvets and organzas,
haiku and tanka wrapped in silken thread:
a hubbub of voices holed up in my head.

Kim M. Russell, 2017

Working Title/Artist: A Group of Children Playing under the Plum Blossoms in the Snow Department: Asian Art Culture/Period/Location: HB/TOA Date Code: Working Date: 1887 photography by mma 1986, transparency #1a scanned by ES retouched by film and media (jn) 3_3_06

Images found on Pinteresr

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Sunday Mini-Prompt with Brendan: Voices

This Sunday, Brendan wants us to write a short poem about the voices we hear, which call or enthral, yearn and burn. He says the assigned poem is a seashell we should hold to our ears and write about what we hear the sea sing…

He says that, for most of us, voices play at the edge of hearing, in the subconscious slipstream, in dreams and poems, and the realm of the dead. Waking consciousness mutes those voices, the way that shadows fade at noon. Sufferers of schizophrenia have no filter for those voices, they are commanded by them.

He says that, creatively, voices can take us to extremely dark places. The voice in Sylvia Plath’s final poems in the dead of winter 1963 is a terrifyingly artful loud voice; you can hear it too in Shakespeare’s blackest moments.

28 thoughts on “Hubbub”

  2. Poetic words worm and edge,
    scritch-scratching senses
    into phrases and sentences;
    ragged nightmares and dreams
    into outfits with hems and seams

    Wonderfully eloquent!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you for your comment, Hank, and sorry I’m replying so late but we’ve had a powercut that lasted into the early hours of this morning. I’m just savouring a hot cup of blackberry tea to ward off the chills.

      Like

      Reply

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