Deaf (Old Draft)

I couldn't hear. The trumpet
working into the ear-drum
Was blocked, stony silence.
When I knocked, nothing,
No bells nor whistles,
only resonance through rock.
The ears were blocked--
the doctor said they wouldn't drain.

Impurities of eye and ear,
How long it took to drain
ears of what guarded them.
The steps and porches
Over which I poured solution.
As grass grew, a solution
Bubbled to unblock the wax.
The porches would be free.

My solution was water-peroxide,
To pour above the ear-steps,
The porches, whorls over bone-
The earwax blocking my canals.
The drums of the ear unmoved.
I lay at my side like a king
in his mattress-grave of flowers.

The drunks liked them.
their sides pressed to earth
to hear worms bore, roots latch,
while air blew above the other ear.
Where they are kings in the shade
maples rustle like cotillion dresses.
or creak with more kings beneath.
They will never tear the tree down,
cut one in flushed sections. Earwigs
do not find home in ears of men,
whose deafness is magisterial.

One possesses earth for riches,
Another presides above the earth.
I heard radio, but not my thoughts,
over space, like a harbinger,
or some clock, inside opaque.
Hollow is a relative term--
fishes think they swim a void.
What we claim as dense is fluid.

Even windowpanes flow,
although an inch may be a life-span.
My ear canals were stuffed.
A wall of wax refused to budge
No matter how many drops
Rolled down the porches-
I couldn't engage my surroundings.

The ear canals of the king
filled with medication in his garden.
And he fell asleep to the rain.
He wanted to name birds above
--they were older than the trees--
but with each porch inaccessible
he listened to the worms.

I lay at my side, solution
In my ear, medication fizzling.
My ears rung with their messages.
How long a single tone can last.
not dumb, just deaf. Signals
on the data stream spiked over me.
I’ve missed your voice.