poetry by david henson

Sounds Misplaced

The dreamlatch is locked. 
This is really happening.
We think seathunder was the first 
to be misplaced. A sudden quiet 
awoke folks living by the water. 
Peering outside, they saw 
waves crashing soundlessly 
as the moonlight that bathed them. 
That same night, surfpound 
raised the landlocked from sleep.
That was the first time 
the phenomenon was widely reported. 

For all we know, 
it long had been creeping. 
Perhaps the first misplaced sound 
was a backyard cricket, its legrubs 
manifesting under a bed. 
Or maybe an old man poked 
a broom under his sofa and wondered 
how a bullfrog got in his home 
even though the croaker 
was lilypadding in a distant pond. 

Whenever it started, it’s commonplace now. 
Jetroar rattles windows in farmhouses 
far from airports. 
Football chants leave stadiums hushed 
and echocheer down hospital hallways. 
We hear children jabbering in empty rooms, 

happy birthday ringing out at funerals. . .

Sometimes results are tragic. 
A silent tornado 
slams a slumbering family, 
the twister’s freight train 
a hundred miles away. 
Screams for help knife the night 
on 58th but are heard only on 2nd.

Scientists claiming to find 
fractals in the chaos 
mimic TV meteorologists, display maps 
with red arrows and blue swirls. 
They forecast windhowl in supermarkets, 
the crash of falls in the desert, 
the bark of dogs in homes 
of cat people. The predictions 
are always wrong. 

Academics circle in stacks, 
researching a cause. 
Journalists grin from articles 
that practically write themselves. 
Holy folk claim the misplaced sounds 
are a punishment. 
Or a blessing. 
Or a test. 
The government swears 
its hands are clean.  

Gamblers bet on what noise 
will appear where—tirescreetch 
in the bowling alley, lionroar 
in the bank. New lotteries 
fatten state coffers like calves. 
The poor grow poorer.

Shamans offer normalcy 
for a fee, but can we believe 
those whose words evaporate at their lips?

Every day we hear something 
where there should be nothing 
and nothing where there should be something. 
Panic attacks become common 
as voices in the treetops.

As time passes, we realize 
we must try to adapt, 
that life goes on. We tell ourselves 
our newborns will accept as usual 
our bizarre. The thought comforts 
yet we remain haunted: 
When we whisper in a lover’s ear, 
who hears? And where 
will our dying words go?