the message in your poem took me back to my schooldays when our history teacher made the difference between making history better or worse..unfortunately it was the later and made me lose interest in history....you are right how the story is narrated is very important...
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Made me think about the movie I saw, French, I think, of a young couple on their honeymoon in the south of France where she pricked her finger on a rose and started bleeding. Having the disease where one bleeds and the blood is not clot (hemophilia?) They returned to Paris, I remember, where she died. Very sad, like your poem
is a great metaphor for the very personal way loss affects us. For the sound we hear in the shell is actually the magnified sound of our own blood pumping through our veins to supply our brain with the nourishment it needs to think the sad thoughts that we put in these poems
that anyone can relate to. It also tells us that almost any person, place. or thing can be converted into a poem in the hands of a thoughtful writer. Welcome to Neopoet Looking forward to more of your words.

"I was hearing a story I already knew, but was still anxious about how it would end." nice. your poem about storytelling is a gripping story itself.

Dear Al,
The description of the feeling of involvement is powerful and the ending is great.
Maybe because of that I envy the listener and want to know more about what he hears?
I wonder if developing the middle - I need a few more powerful details - adds some balance to the poem?

Perfection in setting the scene.

Then, I quite strongly feel
( this is where it gets eerie)
is entirely superfluous, and even the last two lines.

Though if all three were chopped it would be an entirely different poem and might need a bit more actual story-telling. Wodjareckon?