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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

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