Tag Archives: silence

Honest Silence

What is there left to talk about?
The lines have all been drawn,
and leave us little common ground;
not much to dwell upon.

Why squirm in silence here together,
bound by social whim
to say not what is on our minds,
but delicately skim

around the ugly awful truth:
that you and I will not
agree on art or politics,
on legalizing pot,

on why it is that men and women
fulfill different roles,
what constitutes an act of war,
or what makes up the soul.

Excepting those fine topics,
we can speak on what you wish;
although I’m sure in time we’ll find
other taboos to list.

What is there left to talk about?
Why meet here at the fence
pretending that we give a damn?
I’d prefer an honest silence.

08 APR 2006

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Don’t Say a Word

Don’t say a word; let the silence between us
deepen and swallow us whole;
forget who was in control,
who had the more meaningful role.

Don’t say a word; let not speaking remind us
of what can be better unsaid;
better to not be misled,
or say something ill of the dead.

Besides, talking never was easy to do;
our love was a sentence cut off half way through,
each word like a weapon used only to prove
that I believed me, and that you believed you.

Nothing but silence is left to us now;
no need for explaining or wondering how
the things left unspoken worth talking about
weren’t worth the time figuring out.

Don’t make a sound; let the calm quiet take you
out beyond the reach of my voice;
you and I both made that choice,
opted for different noise.

Don’t make a sound; even the slightest whisper
might shatter our reason tonight;
and keep us together in spite
of what we both know to be right.

Besides, all our talking has come to no good:
our love never grew up the way that it should,
but used words like weapons to tear us apart,
each comment a dagger in each other’s heart.

Nothing but silence is left us to share;
no need for pretending to bother to care.
The things left unspoken we both didn’t say
won’t matter much after today.

09 FEB 2006

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Allness of Everything: alcaics

In seeking out the allness of everything
(a journey full of critical posturing
that makes our baggage less intrusive)
listening silently guides each footfall.

Each minute’s chat, each garrulous dialogue,
that nervous banter drowning the emptiness
of what the world leaves as unspoken,
cleverly misdirects those who search for

the secret, sacred whispering undertone
that proves a pulse still dripping with energy,
of beyond ancient time and birthing:
constantly creating all of being.

15 OCT 2005

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When They Come for Us, Who Will Protest?

Against such foes as ignorance and greed
what good are merely human flesh and bone?
In which fierce battles waged to rule the soul
of a proud nation shall the victor be
its best and brightest minds, its stoutest hearts,
when fear and rank injustice swell the rolls
of those conscripted soldiers armed and aimed
by puppetmasters who would work unseen?

If in such times as these, the few who sense
a wrongness in the aims of governance,
instead of crying out are meek and mute,
what hope have those blind masses, huddled there
for warmth in the great blanket of deceit?
If those with minds still clear give little thought
save for their small domains and precious selves,
what hope have they when their turn comes to pass?

When poison finds the bloodstream, all is lost;
there is no purpose then to treat the wound.
Once tainted, can a cause that once was pure
be ever cleaned again of evil stains?
The names of gods, if used to claim the world,
unless they touch more than the tongues they loose,
become pale, haggard shadows of what truth
they may have once possessed, and are no more.

If what we do not exercise, we lose,
reduced to merely wisps of once brave words,
then what good are proud speeches or parades
except to eulogize the selves we’ve lost?
What point in our lamenting the forged chains
that by our apathy we choose to wear,
and through our lack of action help to build
a prison we were told was not for us?

How loud do we protest the slightest thing
that limits our convenience and our ease,
yet quietly accept far greater ills
that jeopardize our prized integrity?
We guard against the slow, menacing creep
of some imagined danger with such pomp,
yet when the wolf, well-dressed, knocks at the door.
we smile and offer him our favorite seat.

What hypocrites we are; what grand buffoons!
To think we find ourselves somehow evolved,
and self-possessed with intellect and poise
equipped to teach the other fellow truth.
No wonder half the world begins to laugh
when as the grand messiah we approach;
while huddled in our shadow, the rest wait
for hubris to collect its karmic toll.

07 MAR 2005

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Counterpoint: Domestic Strife and Miles ’64

A flurry of words assaults the ear
as she storms back in the room,
alto voice filling the space
left by the withering blast
of the horn; the false lull breaks

as the drum, relentless, kicks
forward the time, and her growl
bites off the bar viciously,
saying, listen close and learn –
you don’t know my opinion.

No, no, that’s my quick response,
block chords of the piano
trying to fix the segue,
substituting chord after chord,
as the bass beneath pushes

us ahead, red hot and mad,
working the room with anger;
the murderous notes fly wild,
burning away useless charts
as Miles and I turn our backs,

and say, “Never mind.”

The head that began it all
now lost, deliberately,
only tensions and guide tones
suggesting of melody,
her alto pauses and breathes

as the snare drum snaps, alert,
finding the primal level
in our talk, the undertow
where the nothing we share breeds
and lets loose its dark malice.

A conversation, I think,
is not about streams of words
in space from a single voice,
but interplay of accent;
subtle questions in each pause

a spur driving another line,
or emphasis, amplifying
the other’s words, pushing back
perhaps only with a breath
to change rhythm and the tune,

like saying, “So What?”

For the song is not possessed
by one alone; it weaves and moves
from alto to first, trumpet,
then to bass and to the drum,
brass bell, then ivory key,

as moistened reed gives way, back
to the brass, struck on its edge
by wire brush; each one pushing,
working off of each other,
waiting to get the last word.

Now she’s back in the kitchen,
but her solo I block out;
focusing my quiet vamp
’til she sits out a chorus
and I can speak my own phrase

as she turns her back to me,
thinking, like Miles, of control,
giving me a bit of space,
with an irritating cool
that shows she is the leader.

The band says, “We hate that.”

31 JUL 1994, revised 31 OCT 2001

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At Dawn When I Awoke

At dawn, when I awoke, the rain
was but a mist that damped the lawn;
and then its whitewash strength increased
to rinse the night, ’til it was gone.

Its purpose served, it too then waned,
as greys began to blue
and dried the puddles left behind
to just a drop or two.

Yet on the breeze I taste it still —
its cool and fragrant kiss,
that lingers in the morning air;
good days begin like this.

The wrens, at first asleep, or shy,
now venture from their shade
and low, take up their favorite tune
and start to promenade.

07 DEC 2004

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Sometimes in Fits of Restless Pique

Sometimes in fits of restless pique
I lose the will to even speak;
and listening to voices lie
reduces me to tears. I cry

not for their souls in peril; no,
but for a world that makes it so
worthwhile to bend and shape the truth
this way and that, a mood to suit.

And weeping, once the phone is dead,
I sit and wonder, seeing red,
why those who have integrity
must bear the brunt of infamy

while tarred and feathered by those fools
who will not play by agreed rules,
but choose instead to twist and wreck
the facts. But then, in retrospect,

I pity anyone who must
rely on guile instead of trust
to count some coup against their foe
scoring them, one, everyone, zero.

06 DEC 2004

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