I long for the luxury of silence,

to hear my thoughts spoken softly to me.

Not shouted over the roar of four wheeled

monsters competing for tarmac,

against the crack of construction,

as cranes swing steel into another shining high-rise

stabbing at a sky whose weighty clouds rumble

as metallic birds fly by.

I want to walk in layers of unrippled silky air,

I don’t care for your music or your laughter.

Take your parties to a place where the bassline is welcome,

and the sound of fun shoots through you like a loaded gun.

I’m so tired of sirens firing sonic panic through my walls,

and the calls of passing strangers,

some in anger, some in greeting,

Why must their meetings impress upon my ears?

I want to hear my feet crunch on crisp leaves,

to hear the sparrows singing in the eaves,

And trees dance to the whispered tune of summer’s breeze.

I want to hear the river flow, deep and slow,

and when winter comes, I want to hear the snow.

I want to hear, I want to hear through my fears.

But this city is a restless beast.

With ceaseless prowling she feasts upon the silence

and howls into the night and day.

Eating up birdsong as easy prey,

she claws her way into my waking thoughts and dreams,

derailing inners streams of consciousness.

Seedling ideas are killed off before they can

take root, by the hooting of expensive cars,

by the blah, blah, blah of millions of lives,

buzzing around this urban hive.

I long for silence, for a fence around my thoughts.

For nought but to hear myself call,

to hear myself call, or hear nothing at all.