sound scapes

what do we hear?

what is perceived in the hearing?

how soon after hearing a word
or a sentence or even a random
beep in the air
do we begin formulating some
sort of judgment as to the
nature and meaning of a sound?

while walking yesterday i heard
the PA system at a school
and the playground was completely empty
but the sound of a woman's voice
was making a public declaration
even if the intent was directed specifically
to the young students
a whole neighborhood was required somehow
to hear the directive

almost immediately i was aware
of the sound of the voice
and what it meant
so i began recognizing the tone of
authority
a no nonesense conveyance of
what is thought to be necessary information

in short
it was a command
a statement of requirement
a matter to be taken seriously
at least by the students of one grade
if by no-one else

amplified sound has become the norm
human voices are in effect
synthesized constantly
in the world of the microphone
what we hear is the processed sound
it is even more impossible then
to imagine a poet
finding an authentic voice
unless we reduce the experience
of poetry to merely the written word
engaged upon rather silently
that is
read

just now i spoke on the phone
to a friend travelling in a car
on the freeway talking on his cell phone
i heard micro gaps in the transmission
of his voice
i heard the whir of hiway noise in the background
and i heard his voice and an unnatural shrill quality
produced by what ever mechanism allows
for such communication to take place

twice yesterday i experienced the phenomenon
of a call interupted by a forced or accidental hiatus
an ending whose volition had no bearing on anything
i had decided to do
one moment i was talking coherently
the next moment i was forced to acknowledge
the sound of silence
and then the insistent beeping
or the white noise symphony of no space no time
all this happening in my ear
we are deathly burdened
with manufactured sound

then there is the phenomenon
which has made its way into
colloquial reference
the statement often made
when the lives of people
are somehow meant to converge:
"were your ears ringing?"
meant to suggest somehow
that a conversation with you as
the subject
was recently taking place
being had
as it were

these days
a ringing in your ear is
more difficult to explain
it could be anything
from actual directed sound waves
emanating from a radio tower
a sudden rise in blood pressure
a distant almost inaudible alarm
a phone off the hook
a memory of sirens in the night
a friend's guitar amplifier
left on for weeks
a dream from which one strives
to awake

the planet is awhir with manmade and processed
sound