Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

is superficially quite similar to its white and well known cousin,
taking the form, most often, of some standard drone;

for example radio interference or static hiss. It differs, however,
in one most fundamental aspect, being but a facsimile or clone

of genuine sound. It has been described as an ‘aural shadow’
or ‘sonic after-image’, or, memorably, as ‘a mingled blizzard

of second hand voices’. It is a ghost that wanders darkly through
the chambers of the ear forever, for once listened to it can never be unheard.

Take this woman: late twenties, gray tracksuit, longish hair.
She has come, for whatever reason, to this sheltered bay,

her steps recorded perfectly in its damp and yielding sand
as she power-walks along the tide-line. This is the best part of her day

she thinks, as the wind fiddles with her blown black hair
and she stares out at the metallic, unrippled surface of the sea.

Even here, however, the ghosts of sound continue.
Though she is quite alone she can hear it faintly,

the black noise, behind the swash and backwash
of those tender waves that are hardly enough to shift the shingle:

it is a hiss blended from Hanover Street kangos
and the nightly rumba of the washing machine, from every insidious jingle

off the breakfast show, from ring tones and ohrwurmen and the sullen
humming of the office AC. She angles her head but it’s still there,

staining the water’s insistent sibilance and the haranguing of the gulls.
It is sursurant, and repetitive, and is no longer in the ear.