The Loud Boys

Loving the lusciousness, splash of a bath;

lying awake in a bed or a cot,

loving the singing, the chorus, the noise

when grown ups try stopping but no, they are not

listening or clocking his shout and his meaning

to sing out in gusto, splash without malice, enjoy

all his loudness of manna and life force, bread

basket living by singing with passion instead.

Loving tonality, simply momentous,

he warbles his words and intensity lifts

a dramatist’s hand by directing the feeling

and his hand is an actor’s and so the scene shifts

into silence, a calmness, the wind now has dropped

and a clock’s movement stopped because he is stealing

asleep to rest nerve, bones and blood in his veins

as he flicks off the switch on a wonderful thundering day.