Sounds

Sounds

A fraction after the Big Bang

Space was bodied forth,

1000 trillion degrees hot;

The universe cooked-up

And then it cooled,

Producing stars and planets,

And the static that crackles on my TV.

In 1929, Hemingway's mother

Posted him a chocolate cake;

In the parcel was a revolver,

His father's suicide .32 calibre;

He threw the gun into a lake;

And the weapon sank;

The splash went deep.

The cow who failed her test

Was alone in the byre;

All night I heard

Her mournful moos;

Stars stared from sky-black puddles

At the heavens indifferent

To her lowing.

The patch of notes

Was hot off his pencil;

Counterpoint was harmony;

In The Burning Fiery Furnace

Britten had a Babylonian drum

In the procession,

But no roller skates.

Staring at the headland Kavanagh

Leaned on a five-bar gate;

The gate was skewered on

The hinges of a side post;

The flaked frame creaked;

He leaned there

With a great hunger.

After the tsunami

The man understood why

The stream had the old name

‘Stream of the Big Ship’,

Three kilometres from the ocean;

He said the cry of a baby

Reminded him he was alive.

Listening to Mozart’s music

We know his notes exist;

Philosophers wonder:

When a tree falls

To the flat forest floor,

And no one is there,

Does it make a sound?

The stage is silent

When Estragon is beaten up;

During this interval we sip wine;

We do not hear the terror,

In the screams of displaced persons;

Silence is the sound

Of not listening.

The cobalt sky leans

Its weight on the crashing waves;

Yachts with contraband

May be readying their dinghies;

That is why

LE Samuel Beckett is at anchor

Waiting for Go…