How A Secret Sounds

Weekly Writing Challenge:  The Sound of Blogging

Some days I cannot resist a challenge.  My English teacher in high school drilled iambic pentameter into our heads.  I think perhaps this might have made him proud.

“The Moon is Up” by Millais (Photo credit: Martin Beek)

Sounds of a Secret

Somewhere there’s noise lost deep inside my soul,

A secret sunk and buried far below.

So long ago concealed and left to die

But wishing from the depths to rise and fly,

To split the heavens wide with howling cry.

And though I try to stuff up all the cracks

A train comes rolling fast on trembling tracks

Rattling, clacking, clattering through the dark

It rocks my bones, and shakes the shivering ground

It quakes the earth and thunders all around

To warn at every crossing where it’s bound.

The whistle is staccato, hooting, sharp –

A jangling, jarring blast to pierce my heart.

My fists are clenched, my knees are drawn up tight

Until the sounds are swallowed by the night.

And there my secret still lies bound in chains

Sweet silence in the aftermath remains.

I sleep and wake and sleep again and dream

Of how to smother sounds in shrouds of pain.