sonya soundbiter

by Zev Levinson

chews another chunk of noise

carries on careening through years

and days of senses blendered

incessant stimuli to eye and ear

and what is near she wonders

what is far she once knew

the forest forever its growth statuesque

now Sonya cityswirls unremembering

as shapes eating landscape

no legends beholding no hold no

still memories move and drop

away like names of faded friends

thirty-something flavors of sounds

reach deep cranium to rattle

one’s wherewithal so all’s gone

loose a waterless landslide

inside her cerebrations flipping stations

like ihopcakes on New Year’s Sunday

drawn to sound she cannot help

but love like we want to love

a once golden band’s new release

inspiration seeming bottled and finite

in quantity though Sonya knows

deep down quality’s continuum and

timelessness perhaps it is this

this battering of things in time

unscrewing her kundalini plummeting

this vortex conglomerate cacophony

reeling through cracked consciousness strung

across zippety lines sines waves till

she wishes she were whale

singing underwater where kin perceive

her wail and respond in sympathy

though thousand fathom separate all

signals blink every tone blur

the old hum from iron bell

strong as childhood resonant

as a sated summer bumblebee

she sinks to her knees

without

                 word

all this music become unsung

and Sonya by Babylon so stung

Photo of Zev Levinson

BIO: Zev Levinson is the author of Song of Six Rivers and The Sauntering.  He teaches with California Poets in the Schools, has taught at Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods, is a Redwood Writing Project teacher-consultant, and a founder of the Lost Coast Writers Retreat.  See ZevLev.com