OctPoWriMo Day 2. The Dark I Carry Everywhere

OctPoWriMo Day 2. The Scares Are In the Sounds

In last year’s first post of Writober, Letters: Symbols of Sound, I shared a chart that separates consonants by where they are formed in the mouth. I really enjoy reading across the chart and feeling the change of the sounds from the front of my mouth to the back of my throat. Which consonants sound scarier? Which consonants feel scarier? How could you use this in your poem?

Example Poem: Nocturne by Li-Young Lee from Poems Dead and Undead(Aal)

Nocturne

That scraping of iron on iron when the wind
rises, what is it? Something the wind won’t
quit with, but drags back and forth.
Sometimes faint, far, then suddenly, close, just
beyond the screened door, as if someone there
squats in the dark honing his wares against
my threshold. Half steel wire, half metal wing,
nothing and anything might make this noise
of saws and rasps, a creaking and groaning
of bone-growth, or body-death, marriages of rust,
or ore abraded. Tonight, something bows
that should not bend. Something stiffens that should
slide. Something, loose and not right,
rakes or forges itself all night.

~Li-Young Lee

How does this poem create a scary soundtrack?

Prompt: What sounds scare you? Think of a time you were startled by a sound, in the dark, alone at night. Describe it as clearly and with as much detail as you can. In your poem, try to recreate the fear you felt through only describing sounds.

Possible Form: Sound Poem A Sound Poem is intended primarily for performance and emphasizes the phonetic aspects of language and downplay the importance of meaning and structure.

~

The Dark I Carry Everywhere

Laughter...

it splinters.

It breaks,

and there, beneath it,
the tick tick tick
of teeth against glass.

I am mid-sentence,
tea still warm,
sun polite on the tablecloth,

when the skr-rrrk comes,
the scrape of chair legs in an empty room,
no one sitting down.

The clink of spoon against mug...

harmless,

until it echoes too long,

a sharp tch tch tch

inside my jaw.

I was fine.

I swear.

sun on my face,

hands steady,

breath steady,

then,

skr-rrrk

(a chair dragged across an empty room,

my chest).

It doesn’t matter that I smile.
The sound arrives anyway.

drip

drip

drip

not the faucet.

never the faucet.

but somewhere under the ribcage,
a leak in the plumbing
I can’t seal.

the body keeps leaking.

I press my teeth shut,

still:

My throat hums

a low mmm—mmm—mmm

hums like wires in the heart.
like wasp trapped in the skull.

The air learns to whistle between my teeth.
I try to steady it,

count it,

count it,
call it back to rhythm:

The hinge remembers its rust.

crrk—crrk—crrk

each creak

a warning I didn’t ask for.

This is how it comes:
a soundtrack I never queued,

the kind of music that bends
doors inward,
walls inward,
me inward.

So,

the air tightens.

the silence hisses.

ssssssssssss—

as if someone (not me)

is breathing at my ear.

and then,

always,

the latch:

k—k—click.

that’s all it takes.

a sound,

a small sound,

and I am gone

into the dark

I carry everywhere.

And when I ask the silence
for mercy,

it only answers
with another

click.

~ Oizys.