Tinnitus (a prose poem)

Posted on June 4, 2015 by jaurquhart

© Sangoiri | Dreamstime.com - Tinnitus Photo

©2015 by Jack A. Urquhart
Listen a moment
and you will hear it,
the universal jingle—
electric, crepitating,
omnipresent in your head.
Barely a hearbeat’s respite
before here it comes again—
the tympanic soap opera;
the static Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizzing
across dissevered nerves.
BAZAAR BOMBER KILLS FORTY!
DETAILS AT SIX! NOW THIS—
it whoops, wheezes, whistles.
HUGE SALE!
EVERYTHING MUST GO-GO-GO!
The contrapuntal ditty
spans infinite octaves,
and the rest of your life;
boasts a closed-circuit libretto
scrubbed Cleaner than Clean
to Double Your Pleasure:
BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE!
it Snaps, Crackles, Pops.
EVERYTHING MUST GO-GO-GO!
Truly, never was trumpeted
A more Bubblelicious
bla-bla-blathering.
For surely you’ve divined it—
that there is no escaping
the Juicy-Fruity madness,
that you are audience-bound,
Starburst to Starburst
to finite attention;
a peon mortally obliged
to listen, and listen, and listen?

About jaurquhart

Jack Andrew Urquhart was born in the American South. Following undergraduate work at the University of Florida, Gainesville, he taught in Florida's public schools. He earned a Master of Arts degree in English, Creative Writing, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was the winner of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Award for Fiction (1991). His work has appeared online at Clapboard House Literary Journal, Crazyhorse Literary Journal, and Standards: The International Journal of Multicultural Studies. He is the author of So They Say, a collection of self-contained, inter-connected stories and the short story, They Say You Can Stop Yourself Breathing. Formerly a writing instructor at the University of Colorado’s Writing Program, Mr. Urquhart was, until 2010, a senior analyst for the Judicial Branch of California. He resides in Washington State.

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1 Response to Tinnitus (a prose poem)

TermiteWriter says:

June 4, 2015 at 12:32 pm

I was having trouble getting your website to open, so I Googled Every Man Jack. Did you know that there is a line of men’s personal grooming products called Every Man Jack? I found that ironic given the subject of your poem!