For me, this is a 'Hit-the-nail-on-the-head' poem. Great poets do that snapshot-nailing-thing so well. For me, poetry does that like no other art form can - well not by itself at least. My first love - Music - is incredible, but musicians have the wonder of melody, drums, horns and bluster to help their lyrics along. Poetry usually doesn't.
Here's Coral's wondrous poem ...
This wonderful poem took me back in an instant, like a virtual time-machine, to being in my dad's Morris Marina in the 70's. Mum and Dad in the front; me and my sister in the back. For Summer holidays, Dad would make us get up at 4 a.m. so we could get from #Uttoxeter to Great Yarmouth before 'it gets busy', via B roads only. (Dad had a motorway phobia!). The gigantic map had been unfolded, route marked, route checked and refolded again and again a million times.
Anyway, I remembered that hypnotic silence that Coral Rumble writes about; it was the sound of me and my sister having a break from arguments in the car whilst being momentarily mesmerised, more by the undulating, telegraph wires, than by the fight-to-the-death argument about who was best on Top of The Pops last night #TOTP
A couple of chest-puffing birds, silhouetted against Little Fluffy Clouds, were often spotted on the telegraph lines, bemused as we passed. I always thought, "What are those two birds thinking as two sulky kids, foreheads leaning on windows, stare at them blankly from an alien metal machine whizzing by?"
In some way, my favourite Kate Bush song springs to mind: Moments Of Pleasure
Just being alive it can really hurt And these moments given are a gift from time Just let us try to give these moments back To those we love, to those who will survive
And I can hear my mother saying 'Every old sock meets an old shoe' Isn't that a great saying? 'Every old sock meets an old shoe' Here come the Hills of Time
Hey there, Maureen
And hey there, Bubba Dancing down the aisle of a 'plane
S'Murph, playing his guitar refrain
Hey there, Teddy Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road
I've always loved that line ... "Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road." It's pure magic that lines in songs can conjure up such adoration and meaning, that was never intended on inception. Or was it?
Even more magical is how inspiration is a chain; a chain that goes on and on and on and flits from one art form to another like butterflies. Inspiration is a thing best imbued.
Coral Rumble's poem reminds us of the unappreciated power and grandness within silence. I wrote this simple #Kenning #KenningPoem after falling in love with the Kate Bush song. It's very simple - my poem that is: Laugh Attack isn't about silence exactly, but it is about those memory-sparking, magical moments of laughter, where words and sentences as we know them, are unnecessary.
And don't forget - it's National Day of Silence .
National Day of Silence in April each year is a student-led movement to protest bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and those who support them. The Day of Silence brings awareness and illustrates to the schools and the colleges how intimidation, name-calling, and general bullying have a silencing effect. Participating students take a day-long vow of silence.