The Subtle Sounds of Love (poem by David N. Donihue)
I have heard the subtle sounds love
Harmonizing just beneath the walla of the subway
As if the souls of the passengers
Had crawled collectively beneath the train and above the tracks
Dashing along with us,
harmonizing a tone of warm pensive forward movement
Somehow, someway. Just forward.
Together without knowing it.
Forward.
I have heard THE SUBTLE SOUNDS OF LOVE
They aren’t that subtle when you choose the frequency
They ripple off the oddest places
They somehow pulse within the darkest channels
Ripping through the painful waters of insecurity
You hear them in the eyes of cops and criminals
You hear them on the skin of the meek and mournful
You hear them echoing the same soft tune
Hoping their harmonies are heard,
Hoping their harmonys are felt
Without question
Just felt and returned and felt
I have heard the subtle sounds of love in the hope of victims
And in the regrets and reinventions
of the violent and the vicious
I have heard the subtle sounds of love in old diners
In coffee shops and snobby restaurants
In the harrowing halls of Corporate America and in the desperate dives of the Sunset Strip.
I have heard them when I am accepted
And when I am turned away
I have heard them when I wanted to die
And I’ve felt them when they coaxed me away
I’ve heard them
In every corner of this town
So many, they are louder than all other noises
When you look the fuck around