if not for the persistent car noises that I hate

Alec H Clark

Cars drive through my bed all night.
				They slip by over my pillows.
		 It’s a shortcut from the window
			to my door.

Cars drive through my soup at lunch.
	Splashing me with scalding
						vegetable broth
				and pulses.

One driver gets stuck.
							Engine revving.
		Greasy slicks form
				on the surface of my soup.

Can’t park there mate,
		shouts another driver
	as he ploughs through
				a shallower part of the bowl.

Fuck.
	This isn’t going to be good for my gut microbiome.
		I think
as the AA breakdown lorry pulls into view.

The Science

Noise pollution has wide reaching health impacts with road traffic noise being the predominant source of harmful noise in the human built environment. Environmental noise has been linked to stress related illness, accelerated ageing, neuroinflammation, disrupted sleep and even a reduction in gut microbiome diversity (in mice). In 2018 around 100,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) were lost in England due to road traffic noise and the World Health Organisation estimates that one million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic related noise in the western part of Europe.

This poem addresses the subject of road traffic noise pollution by taking the cars out of the background and forcing them into the foreground.

The Poet

Alec H Clark studied engineering at Imperial College London back in the day. A drunk person once told him he is the funniest poet in London. He only writes serious poems.

Next poem: Lichen by Mary Mulholland