Lost in the dark, tangled in silken threads

skeleton fingers of old wounds

leaving empty spaces between lunacy

and distorted visions of obsidian darkness.

Mourning in cobalt skies of midnight hours

forest becomes enemy of old torments,

stones knead blisters on quivering feet -

confusion of illusions in dress of doom.

Muted energy splinters along my trail

unraveling nerves in soupy congealed mist,

rough sands of time lingering in deep recesses.

cracked jars of pain hang breathless from limbs

Fist of night pummels in long reach of silence

eroding numbness fading into nothingness.

a crashing, crushing soliloquy absorbing

intensity between shadow and soul.

Silence is something that you feel,

when a hungry beggar is sitting in front of you,

but you have too little money with you

and you choose to have your meal.

You weren't too right though,just think, were you?

Silence is something that you hear,

when you know you have to put up a smile

just to show that you are not fragile,

but everywhere within you it's just - fear.

You then are not too strong either, just think, are you?

Silence is something that you realize,

when you want to fight for the bigger one,

but have nobody to relish the smaller one,

so you decide to have the pizza pieces alone - you were wise.

You do feel it, think again, don't you?

Thief; of echoes, of sound I make:

throat caked with honey and wine,

I digress,

I did not know,

I did not expect to meet:

a thief in the night.

Where else would car echoes have gone?

Have all the birds flown away?

And to return, another day,

when the sky is cleared, but grey.

And the sun shines, but not here.

No alarm, no shutter, no click of newly-polished brogues:

I am awake when the attendance was called

And nobody answered.

The sun has set,

The moon has closed in on itself,

The stars are sheltered by obstinate clouds.

If my ears had lashes and pupils, and specks of gold within them;

I would not need to turn a picture upside down,

nor look upon a grandfather's face,

to know that it is midnight:

Light tastes, spoken, broken

I see nothing in molasses brown,

I have shattered the sky,

And the stars rain down,

but they are invisible to the eye.

So, when you ask why I am running too fast,

From the starry night.

I am running because of nothing;

To hear the beating of my heart.

9-18-2021

It must have come slowly,

Seeping in from every crack,

I didn't even notice,

When it trickled down my back

It was waiting for me at the door,

As I opened it one day,

It was too late then I realised,

As Silence was here to stay

The voices in my head were quiet now,

The sounds of the world had ceased

Silence had the last word,

And I knew I was deceased.

silence is a library filled with books

books as blank as soulless eyes.

silence is a library by some other name

the librarian raises his finger as he looks

if no one can speak, then nobody lies

but pursuit of truth in quiet is a losing game.

silence is fingers, clamping down

on crying babies' mouths and a teenager's frown.

silence is pain of the most acute kind

a deep, mournful stench like a rotten rind.

silence is a library, encouraging you to be still.

silence is only oppression, a line in a fire drill.

silence, you're talking too loud

words scream off the paper,

and that's not allowed.

silence, your head is not right

you'd be better off

if you were unable to write.

hands chopped off at the limb and mouth sewn shut

silence is a library but there are no books,

only knives waiting to cut.

only bindings of flesh and bone,

waiting for another word

to claim as their own.

"Silence suits me just fine. Say no more.

If so inclined. Your silence speaks volumes Simon. Thought it reeks of falsehoods. Anyone can see.

It’s just part of a costume. Clearly biting your tongue feels so wrong. It’s exhausted you. At what cost Mr Mayhues?"

A quick gloss I’d thought. Before the swords cross. And a war of words is launched. I didn’t toss my hat into the ring a lot. I did speak up when the pot called me a kettle black. Confirmed by a tip of my hat. Only a childish fool gets goaded into a lesser gentlemen’s spat. Disarming loaded questions. Without hesitation. No more tit for tat spats. Far from that.You don’t gotta be a mime to figure it out. Stoping short. Miss quoting. You got ghosted dually noted. Loose lips sink ships. So pipe down or we will trade more than quips. Your swimming with sharks now Drip. Sync or swim against the current and get your fins clipped.

"What was that Drip?"

Replied Mr. Simon Mayhues. Opening up and taking the offensive. Repeating oneself being so contentious.

A blanket-

No.

An absence-

No.

Reverence-

Still not right.

Peace?

Certainly not.

A weight-

No.

Yes?

Yes:

A weight,

a shape,

a hand,

is pressing down

Twisting my throat,

Covering my lips,

Keeping all air out

My lungs bloat,

My tongue trips,

And I know without a doubt-

It is back.

That invisible thing,

That creeps and crawls and springs

Into everything around it

And forces us to submit.

Isolating.

Unwelcome.

Intruder.

And once it comes

(And it always comes

sometime,

eventually,

inevitably)

It controls us

Though we never discuss

Our ways

For holding it at bay

Just in case it may stray

And upon us set its gaze

We try to stave it off

With a cough and a scoff

And it works-

But just for a while

A much-too-short while

Before it again descends

And rends

Our ability to speak

From us limb to limb, wing to beak

I hope you never fall prey

As I was lead astray-

It is never good to be alone

When control of your voice is not your own.

silence is an old friend of mine,

who visits at the best and worst of times;

it cocoons me in its immense, bare bliss

or torments me with its echoing abyss

silence commands utter reverence;

it will either bring you down to your knees

or drift you up to utopia with its attendance

sometimes it sounds like a prayer,

its feverish whirr chanting for decree

or it sounds like a damning curse,

quietly deranging until sense disperses;

silence is an old enemy of mine

its meaning often refusing to be defined

my protector when nothing would defend

a weapon, relishing its ability to snare

silence either hums along rhythmically

or roars and wrecks about destructively;

upon its return, I can always depend

whether it determines to save or slay me

drowning me in its endless depths

or redeeming me in a quiet death

at least I know it will always be

silence is sometimes a lonesome world

but it is often where genius whirls

though odd, it is an answer in itself

as well as the question quietly knelt

silence is a distance, savage and cold

or a journey of love and enlightenment

silence sure is a spectacle to behold

in all forms, it's filled with entitlement

A cool reticence that lives in the white noise of vintage UHF. Technicolor late-nights ended with a bleary-eyed patriotic timber of colored stripes waving good night. That red, white and blue, turned to color bars then dissolved into a Rorschach of white noise. Volume, cranked all the way down.

A sliver of space at the crest of an exhale. When the labor of your diaphragm ceases to heave. A momentary calm that blots out the entendre of motion. Mouth gaped, nostrils flared in seizure. At the edge of autonomic response. Preparing to suck wind once again.

A single frame of bewilderment as a pair baby blues behold something yet unbeheld. Pupils expanding and contracting - dissecting a kaleidoscope of light. A blank canvas set to capture the wondrous or define the ordinary. Reveling in that momentary blur, that minor lack of focus imbibing in emptiness.

An abyss, a sprawling gulf of nothing, unmolested, somewhere between sleep and wake. Between life and death. Between the conscious and unconscious. A mind drowned in the deep, ears filled with liquid plugs, eyes closed, volume down, white noise , pause between breaths, world out of focus.

An echo chamber in a vacuum. Resounding.