Most of the basic words we use everyday, if not all of them, presumably began as undifferentiated sounds; noises that people made to correlate with what they heard in the world around them. Sometimes those sounds become words that are little altered from the sounds that prompted them: “meow,” “woof,” “roar,” and “chirp” come to mind. Write a poem that uses one or more onomatopoeic words in the title or body of the poem, or is about sounds in general: the crack of a bat on ball; the rumble of a broken muffler; the gurgling of small waves on a beach; the rustling of wind in the trees. Your imagination might create sounds no one ever thought of, or that don’t exist.
WILLIAM PRESTON’S ATTEMPT:
SISS. BOOM. BAH.
These words, if they’re words, are so puzzling to me;
I always am wondering what they can be:
the sounds of the cymbals; the crashes of drums;
sensations of rumbles, vibrations, and thrums?
Perhaps they’re mnemonics, a form of encoding,
or maybe the sounds of a sheep exploding.
© copyright 2013, William Preston
WALT’S NOISE:
SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL
Stuck between hard rock and a place
where music finds its root.
Foot tapping and the gentle rapping
against a table top never stops.
The kids are jumping, Their feet
are thumping the floor. Windows
rattling and battling the urge
to turn every dirge into Top 40.
Back beats and bass lines found their
way in their day. Hear the people sing.
Elvis is dead; Long live the King!
© copyright 2013, Walter J Wojtanik
POETIC BLOOMINGS 