All-Night Radio (Poetry)

It's morning, early, three o' clock;
discordant voices rise like heat to meet our silence,
slice away sleep's grey bandages;
our block shudders with a slamming door,
bricks and mortar all on edge,
the listening building holds its breath
as tension gathers, pauses, shouts
release the fear with crashing glass;
a scream that spirals, then a thud reverberating
through the floor; a dog barks and a baby cries.

An audience waits in the dark
for other sounds to ease our dread - a sign
that nothing really bad has happened -
just an accident and something broken, only that.

At night the startled senses play peculiar,
nightmarish tricks: noise distorts and amplifies
our neighbours' less-than-blissful lives.
None of our business, but an ear
stays pricked despite the drooping lid.
Exchanging sighs and soft 'good-nights',
we try to settle, want to drift back into silence,
but the air hangs punctuated, hollow, raw
with muffled sobs, their steady beat
more disturbing than the rows.

I flick the switch and turn the dial in search
of music meant to drown the overflow, the floods
of grief carving corridors through stone, through wood
and plaster, nerve and bone, uncontrolled,
low frequency emissions of consuming pain
throbbing, echoing below. A DJ drones,
monotonous, plays several melancholic tunes
in sympathy. I wind along the airwaves'
disapproving hiss, excuse myself with tired defence:
I really cannot deal with this - find Elvis, and the crying stops.

Two quiet hours stretch till dawn but sleep is fitful
and perverse, while dreams invent a rising tide
that seeps through walls and rocks our bed.