Tag Archives: silence

The Conversationalists

There is small comfort in that fragile peace
that rests uneasy when we sit and talk
around the countless things both needing said
and those much better left unshared.

Between the spider and the web of lies
that catches us like aspic still unset,
we struggle both to stir and stay unseen;
our efforts pointless, in the end.

There is a comfort in our meeting,
for a moment, brief and fleeting;
as we linger here together
shadows lengthen on that sunshine.

Let our eyes flash subtle innuendo
in the darkness that descends,
and the simple conversation
lapse into a welcomed silence.

So when the brave encounter finds its end,
we smile and fake a sorrow to depart
until the caravan slips out of sight
and finally feel allowed to laugh out loud.

4 JUN 2015

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The Slightest Remnant

Along the edge, the slightest remnant lingers
before it falls away into the void
and dries like alcohol upon the fingers,
its essence there but nonetheless destroyed,

the merest memory of thought or action
caught only by a sentimental whim
unable to return the satisfaction:
the empty echo of a finished hymn.

And yet, that tiny fragment’s lack of meaning
unlocks what always follows, in the end:
an empty room assaulted by spring cleaning
that only waits to be filled up again.

Before the dawn, the night feels it is endless:
a gaping maw that, in the sun, is friendless.

05 JAN 2015

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Some music must be free

All music cannot be contained
in simple structures, common forms,
by formulaic skeletons
that would restrict the way it’s made;
it reaches out beyond those lines,
a crayon in untutored hands
that blurs the edges in between
the guidelines of a thing.

Some music, yes, belongs inside
of metered time and measured space
to ground us in the here and now,
to mold from chaos grand designs;
without such structure, we might fail
to understand in order’s calm
the limits of what is right here,
constructed on our yesterdays.

But other songs burst free those chains;
they must, else we could scarcely breathe,
and would attempt constant escape
from ordinary life, or worse,
might find a way to shade in grays
without a trace of brighter hues,
and silent, shuffle off to death
without a word but still in step.

24 APR 2013

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Time Enough: a byr a thoddaid

What there is left to say, I have said;
let’s leave off talking, and try instead
another way to listen and be heard
that words don’t understand.

Wait a moment: let some silent thing
bring with it, for a while,
another point of view to our chat;
Surely, we have time enough for that.

23 NOV 2010

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Difference Song

Just shut your eyes and zip up your lip;
let the illusion of indifference slip

you in a coma of the beautiful life

you pretend.

It doesn’t matter which way you choose.
Your revolution is yesterday’s news,
lost in a column on the bottom right

of page ten.

Here it comes again…

the feeling you should not be feeling,

the knowing right from wrong,
the urge to find the answers,
the make a difference song.

Just keep your mouth shut, don’t say a word.

Don’t let on that you think it’s all absurd, 

a trick of light and mirrors meant

to fool the marks.

It doesn’t matter, those who get paid

are on the right side of the barricade.
The choice is death by drowning,

or life with sharks.

And here it comes again…

the feeling you should not be feeling,

the sense that something’s wrong,
the need to turn the light on,
the make a difference song.

09 JUL 2009

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Space Between Breath

What still remains when words have run their course,
and soundless, lay exuberant and spent
beyond the realm of sound? What is the source
that waits between each breath, self-evident

for just the briefest moment, as the lull
when one idea dies and one is born
expands in pregnant silence and is full
of consonants and vowels not yet quite formed?

In which dimension does such time exist?
It has no breadth or width, nor is it tall.
It has no form, but hangs like evening mist
on summer nights surrendering to fall.

And past that quiet whisper, when all sound
has faded into nothing and is gone,
the meaning of the universe is found:
the stuff that only dreams are built upon.

02 JAN 2009

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With one word aloud

With one word aloud,
the illusion is broken
as the echo fades.

So deep, this still well,
that a small sound is strengthened
and seems so much more.

But echoes will fade;
and in the gaping silence
words do not survive.

The illusion is
that there is one who listens.
Without sound, who knows?

What use is speaking
in such an empty cavern?
My ego needs this?

21 JUL 2006

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