September 4
One thing that’s always with me at the desk is tinnitus. My ting-a-ling. I rarely hear it hear it unless I listen for it – listen out, listen in. It is a glittery, glistering sound; flittering-blistering, like something coming to the boil that shouldn’t be boiled, because it’s sentient though made of silver. A tiny man in a tiny orchestra playing a tiny triangle, on a loop, forever-until-I-die. Unless I’m unlucky and it becomes Einstürzende Neubaten, industrial; mutates and escalates to a Beethoven level clangour of anger and fire-station alarm. I prefer the current pernickety mosquito of aluminium, the pre-cold sore tingle of annoying half-sound. Trinkle-trankle. Tinkle-tinkle. Maybe it is aluminum, not aluminium, and maybe it is bottle-top, not single silver bell. Hi-hat unclosed, washy cymbal, but also with Philip Glass needlepoint – Chipmunk’s version of the orchestra stab of the Psycho shower scene. Or I think that I can hear the electrons bouncing through the wires of the house, like sperm up a fallopian tube. It is a presence, an opalescent presence. Tinnitus, tinnitus, its’ – it’s – it’s a million billion trillion wristwatches ticking increasingly unceasingly, unpleasantly incessantly, infernally eternally. Yes, bitingly and bitterly/ it ticks on unremittingly/ within me quite exclusively/ as if to find a use for me/ that may be just traducing me/ or somehow introducing me/ to tingling jingles, chiming rhymes/ a-tisket a-tasket/ it won’t cease if I ask it/ but loves to live repetitive/ so snickety pernickety/ invisible and risible/ tick-ticking like a – like a little flea/ as near as ear, as inner ear/ as inner ear and inner ear/ and all they hear is all they hear/ is tinnitus and tinnitus/ it is… it is... it is in us…/ in us it is, is tinnitus/ (as tick and tock as ceiling mice/as stock a schtick as Doctor Suess)/ It sits kitteny/ it licks stickily/ it’s Tintin’s sins, isn’t it?/ It’s nuns’ tits, it is./ It’s Titus Stintsun’s sinus stunts, int it?/ It’s nits in tu-tus sittin’ in situ in Inuit’s tin units, innit?/ Flittingly a little flea/fits flippers on its little feet/then fleets its flatfoot flippantly/in flippin’ Little Italy./ Metal-peddler Petal/ copped a proper copper kettle/ up in Popocatépetl/ yup, to settle debts in Settle.