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The Voice of Annihilation
For the innocents
Not really like Bird Man..
but the voice is one we all know and fear.
The whisperer of deadly-bad advice, the coaxer to oblivion.
It’s so far in the background weave, we are unsure what we perceive, but we think it.
It’s we who think it and then, for our survival, we fight it.
“Who’s talking? Is it talking to me?
It’s not a chat, a monologue or a soliloquy, not a request,
a favor nor a memory.
Not really like Bird Man, but it calls to us.
It flaps like a shadow in our shadow,
tells us to open windows in skyscrapers,
walk like a zombie to the edge of the cliff,
put our feet on the tiles of the roof, while it coaxes,
“Just slide down.”
It has no tone or timber, nothing we even recognize as speech and yet,
if we know it, we fight it,
and stay away from all those places it keeps sending us to.
It’s a black hole of our own universe reclaiming from whence we came.
It’s a stop watch to madness: Times up, and we all are prone to hear it someday.
It’s why I crawl, not walk, over suspension bridges, close the windows on all hotel rooms,
stay off of high balconies with low verandas..
“Oh, jump why don’t you?” It really says things like that!
It’s the anti life..calling you to your guaranteed death.
Acute-collective built-in bad programming, we all know it;
we came with it.
The voice of annihilation, one maybe heard in a locked cockpit, over the alps.
“Oh just get it over with!” Take it down”
Karima Hoisan
March 27,2015
Costa Rica
Digital Rabbit Hole 
Such an interesting and thought provoking poem. Have we all heard that voice in our darkest moments? Suggesting, cajoling, seducing us..sometimes a barely heard whisper, sometimes for some a constant roaring chant blotting out light and thoughts of anything other than that final catastrophic step into oblivion.
Once again you’ve touched something in all of us and made us pause, and think about the taboo.
Thank you sis.
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Thank you sis that is exactly the voice I am talking about..how strange we seem to have a self -destructive button built in…yet our instinct for survival “usually” saves us.,.
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One doesn’t know what to think, yet. Your poem touches something deep inside of me. Thank you, Karima!
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Thank you Joey, I know when you say that, later you will show me the words that it made you think..This of course is a compliment for me..and I agree as I told Nat I tried to talk about the almost “untalkable” the indescribable…My friend Menu calls it “The Lizard in us all…”
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The voice sometimes roars and at other times lies dormant, but is never completely banished. What keeps the voice quiet and still? Love, that is all.
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So true Amiata, “Only love can kill a demon” 🙂 Thank you for this comment!
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I certainly know that voice! So very well expressed; and such a perfect image to go with it. This is a good taboo to examine, I think; if we don’t just suppress that voice, and pretend it’s not there, but instead bring it out into the light, we are all that much better at resisting it. Removing its power, through understanding. So thought provoking!
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Thank you Dale..this is a strange taboo as Maria first pointed out here, not often evoked or analyzed, yet…so very universal. The extraordinary and extra-horrific events surrounding this Germanwings plane crash, made me want to talk about it.. or see if I could. I agree, things out in the light, lose their dark powers…It’s good to remember that….and yet darkness prevailed that day, and 150 innocents..went down…beyond comprehension!
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And I always thought “the voice” was heard only by a select few. I know I have heard it more than I would have liked to. Especially as a teenager and a young man. Karima, you always seem to recognize those small nuances that pass others by. I guess that’s why you are the writer.
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Thank you Hoyt..I think it’s safe to say we have all heard it at some time. The fact we are still here, is because our will to live was stronger. Madness is just on the other side of the razor’s edge.. Thank you for your continuing support of me and my poetry..
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I know what you mean! Mine loves to tell me I can fly when crossing high bridges. Never when crossing little stone bridges, just those huge engineering marvels that began in the 19th century. But when I’m near a natural drop like a cliff or steep slope, the voice changes its tone and tells me it’s not even safe to stand upright and that it would be better to lie flat clutching the grass with my fingers and toes.
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What a great comment Steve, and I totally relate to the grass clutching while maybe slithering backwards bootcamp-style from the precipice…but that voice..well that is the voice of survival..that makes you get down low to the ground..because it’s not that you are really afraid an earthquake might come and tip you off the cliff if you were standing..no You are afraid of that other voice..the one that says..”You could fly I bet…if you really believed” 🙂
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You really nailed the primitive collective unconscious with this one Karima. Civilization is able to exist only by learning to live with this voice…and not following its orders. Its deep, its guttural and your powerful poem up wells the beast so we can appreciate it. Thanks for the reminder.
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“Up wells the beast;” Wow! what an indelible image that leaves in my mind! Thanks RAG, the subject was a challenge, and one never knows before checking with others just how universal this voice is.. glad to know, like Hoyt says. I’m not the only one…and yes looking at it in the sunlight, is a good way to learn how to live with it! Thank you for taking the time out to share your words..It means a lot!
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This is really good, Karima…..and so powerful. So many images conjured here.
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Thanks Spiral..so glad you could see them!
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