The Earache

The Earache

I was in search of a listener
someone or something that would
understand
a two way street of clear passage through
an unlocked room with an open roof
a scrubbed wooden two top table
as I wandered my heart pulsed in
concentric, propagating waves
a pebble fallen in a pond with no one
to watch it sink through its vibrations
before they disappear
just waiting for a sign
that someone had picked up its message
on the other
side.

I then found harbingers of peace
on the underside of olive leaves
a shadow of periwinkle, a swath of dry green
it was in this moment that I heard a faint calling
an echoing sound from inside a rusting tin can
positioned just under my breast and
attached to a string that stretched even as it frayed
from months of disuse.
At that breath of peace found in the ancient signals
from an olive tree
this aching reverberation comes calling through
the static
as if it has heard
every single word.

My breath catches and the hour seems to freeze
because I’ve been waiting this whole time for the
yearning to cease.

There are some people who listen intently
and buried in the depths of this intent
is the reality of the scene in which you are
struggling to communicate.
It is as if you are standing in the middle
of a street full of people who don’t know
where they are going or from which direction
they came and you scream out what you must say
and your listener, they are standing
on tip toe, searching the crowd
cupping their ear and nodding as if
they heard
every single word.

The minutes tick by and no one seems to realize
that the speaker is in fact praying to a god that never came through.

There are people who will will lean in closer
and listen like you are locked in a room
they are pressing their ear, hard
against paint-peeling wooden doors
with wrought iron key holes
and you have no idea if they understand
all you know is that they are there,
poised, waiting, on the very brink of
hearing every single
word.

Trapped in a communication breakdown the listener
tires of searching for a buzzing in a meadow of queen ann’s lace.

And there are people who do hear it all
they are seated across from you
at a table set with linoleum linens
nodding, hands folded
crystal clear yet they pick and choose
from what they hear
your words are two dimensional
squares that when pieced together build
a paper prison for all the things
that might’ve been understood
if only they were listening
to every single
word.

Perhaps we should hire therapists and doctors
to heal our aching ears and straining hearts.

But there was a time, I swear
where I would look into those eyes that hold
all the clocks on this Earth in a universe of
shivering meadows and bursting valleys
and it was as if we were naked
you were pressing one ear to my heartbeat
to be sure you understood
and you held your breath with the
other ear slightly tilted away from my chest
so that you would register
perfectly
every single word


and you needn’t nod and I needn’t pause
and after a time words were never even said
because we heard
it all.

Every moment since when I thought that maybe
the string can system of communication we left
with one can over my heart and the
other over yours had been damaged
the string had broken and the cans dented
left forgotten in a gutter in a place
we never knew we had been
in the miles and months and minutes we’d missed
and I am ready to resign myself 
leaving my words and all the words I had been saving
to sink into the muddy ground
to ripple aimlessly through the sedimentation
I then hear a faint voice
a heart beat echoing my own
almost like a hello..