Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Noise

Early morning, the cranes begin to lift and squeak
the heavy loads of sheet rock.
Could someone please oil the rusty joints?

The garbage truck yammers and haws and vibrates
with its smelly jaws that open and shut and clamp
on the discarded mattresses and gigantic slabs of waste.

Below my feet there is a boinking
and sudden lifting of a squeaky hinge
as workers use their screw guns to install sheet rock.

The cat dashes under the bed when the lightning cracks.
We watch the jagged trace of electricity.
The water rushes then pools on clogged drains.
Car alarms go off from the super charged air.

Here comes a fleet of motorcycles!
Beefy men in round helmets hold their arms
as far apart as they can to brace their jacked up handle bars.
The farting engines thunder down the street.
Could someone tell them to turn off the screaming eagle
sound effects of their exhaust systems?

They're tearing up the street again
with jackhammers, a combination of
TNT-type explosions and the whine of the dentist's drill
Could someone please come up with a quieter way
to get into the bowels of the street and the pipes
and recalcitrant electrical wiring that goes wrong down there
without a lot of banging and clatter and uproar?
Why isn't it easier to slice open the hole in the ground?
Con Ed, are you listening?


photo by Daniel Carrus

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