- The Guardian,
- Saturday May 24 2008
All day my ear is bombed by words
like melisma and tantrum, cost and brink, each
syllable a little vibration in the air
caught by structures I only know as other words,
though part of me: ossicles, fluid, membrane, cilia.
Give me absolute music to put language to bed.
I'll take the accidents of chimes or taxis tooting
in the background, feet shuffling and a suppressed
cough, the underground rumble, for this, this bundle
of frequencies called "symphony" but signifying Home.
· The Royal Philharmonic Society has commissioned 10 poets to write about listening. Read the poems online at hearhere.org.uk from May 26 or hear them at the Royal Festival Hall on May 31. Entry free.
