noise pollution

some studies on the topic:

• Night noise exposure and risk of death by suicide in adults living in metropolitan areas (2018)
• Occupational Noise Annoyance Linked to Depressive Symptoms and Suicidal Ideation: A Result from Nationwide Survey of Korea (2014)
• Noise exposure and public health (2000)
• Noise pollution: non-auditory effects on health (2003)
• The association between noise exposure and blood pressure and ischemic heart disease: a meta-analysis (2002)
• A Review of Environmental Noise and Mental Health (2000)
• Road traffic noise and psychiatric disorder: prospective findings from the Caerphilly Study (1996)
• Association between occupational noise and vibration and anxiety in the South Korean working population: a cross-sectional study (2022)
• Chronic aircraft noise exposure, stress responses, mental health and cognitive performance in school children (2001)

if you stop 

and listen 

you can hear the world
wailing

cloaked by the convenience

of rushing locomotion

the arthritic screech of metal on metal

with the visceral grind of bone on bone

with all the shrieking and scraping of unlubricated friction

arrives at the platform, at the station, at the port

arrives at its destiny

at the tympanic membrane 

and bangs, bangs, bangs, bangs

on the drum of mental war

bailiff-like, on the door

evicting my more cherished thoughts

now blended in a whirlwind of flailing serrations

now subsumed by the eternal din

by the clandestine cacophony

of municipal mechanisations

trained on a twisted track

the ears are clogged with soot and slime

then pierced, like a pencil in the ear

like Phineas Gage's railroad spike

the self-inflicted, lobotomising radii of sonic weapons

if we could only tune in 

and turn the channel

from this acoustic pollution

that moves through us

almost flagrantly
as an open secret

as an unheard dirge

that nevertheless cuts

scalpel-like

across the mind

and this mind

that wants to sing

to make harmony with waves

hears only the chorus 

of a thousand tin men

screaming out their hearts

shredding the strings of their cords

into hoarse corrugated larynxes, irritated

by repeating the same forgotten plea

the same howling metallic mantra

we must learn to listen
to the sounds of the world

and heed the call 

of our suicidal wail

calling out for attention

attention

attention