Tinnitus - Trudie Shannon

It’s always raining in my head
Sometimes there are cross-winds
And often interminable white noise,
Static that comes before and after storms.
Always raining, from light hissing drizzle
To persistent shards pounding the windows of my eyes.
Sometimes when the night is weighty with silence
I hear the globules of rain flaunt descant and harmony as
They drift around the contours of my skull in vivid orchestration
Often the wind rises exponentially
Obliterating my hope for potential creativity.
Yes, it’s always raining in my head.
Within the landscape of my cranium I have the auditory pulses
Of every season
Soft April showers
The cascade of summer flood
Autumnal gales
And Winter snow’s vibrato hiss.
Always, always raining in my head
With static, that interminable white noise
That comes before and after storms.

Trudie Shannon

Hear for keeps - Bryant Doyle

Shedding characteristic modesty, there's clever things in my head
unfortunately, there's also this sort of humming
it varies, instrumentally, from woodwind to percussion
a haunting humming, sometimes a strumming, or a discernible drumming

Ironically, this germ has sprouted in a fragrant patch
where, if there are any toxins, they're certainly sparse
for this unwelcome pollution harmlessly exists
in my pretty land of Poetry, . . (yeah, I know, up my arse.)

It's picked the wrong person, this audio-virus
if it wants to be nasty, or drive someone barmy
'cos right from birth, I've fought off worse demons
I'm The Black Knight, me, I'm Pepperami.

I've been bestowed, or bewitched, (I dunno why)
with a child-like, over-active imagination
the humming's just a breeze, from a shore, nearby
but the drumming warns of warriors from the Zulu nation.

I'm diverse, but my first wife's step-Gran, at about 75
began hosting a humming, . . .or was it a drumming? . . .
anyway, first she said it was like bees round a hive
but it blossomed into real characters, going and coming.

My noises are just rhythmic, 'cos I'm musical, me
whereas she was literate, cultured, (had Cezannes and Renoirs)
if her diaries hadn't been stolen by a carer,
BBC were going to dramatise her memoirs.

Delayed concussion? Could be, my sister threw me out the pram.
Or, in the compost of my brain, was this noise created?
Sort of psychokineticaudiophotosynthetic . . . Yeah, right
just don't save my brain, when I'm cremated.

Bryant Doyle