Tags
ars poetica, basso profundo, distraught, ghost shark, poem, Poetry, radio static, sonnet, tinnitus
That was the year the cicadas started
in my skull. Their buzz-saw droning; the fraught
song of dust and summer, I’m told. Bleated
noise. It came with the pneumonia. I thought
it was part of the fever. If my ghost
shark can haunt me during delirium
why not raucous bugs in the innermost
depths of my ear? Soon my fever’s bedlam
faded but the sing-song did not. Even
now, love, as I write this, the din’s low groan
keeps me distraught. I wake with radio
static, thinking the dark bellowed. Listen.
Only I can hear it, that deep bass drone;
what hell’s divas call, “Basso profundo.”
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Notes:
In opera the lowest vocal range that a tenor can go is called basso profundo. Starting around a year ago I began developing tinnitus, a ringing in the ears like radio static that is often accompanied by hearing loss. In the last two months or so it has gone from a dull buzz that I could ignore to a much louder droning which wakes me up at night. I find the sort of disconnected musing I need, such as when I’m writing, harder now.
