A listening still

Behind where listening sizzles

on the eardrums,

or snips tripwires

in the solar plexus,

or teases the soma of the mind,

or faintly shivers the soul,

there is always

something of sound.

From beyond the entirety

of neuro-auditory intake,

beneath the interpretive

internal discreet buffering,

even behind the artful selectives

towards recognition and dismissals

and the initial impulsive urges

towards tongue tittering response,

and way beyond

all the foreground affirmatives

and contributors to pleasure sensed

into ‘whatever-is-sound’ evokes . . .

it is still

and sounding.

This it

is very still . . .

It is impenetrably quiet.

It is featurelessly a full fill

of emptiness,

an omni-directional stampede

of tranquility,

an implode

of immobile vastness,

a hostile fury

of motionless calm.

It is stillpoint madness,

evaporative without exchange.

It is enormity

without dimension,

uninvitingly expansive

one pointedness,

every which way.

It is cancelled sound

without origin or exchange,

layered like sentinels

of absence collapsed,

the uselessness

of sound remembered,

re-embraced

as forgotten anew.

It is . . .

for you and I,

still . . .

a listening still . . .