A Poem In Silence

She appraises herself in silence
and laughs when I touch her.

What stops your tongue?
From tasting, from twirling?
Ears are gluttonous
and cannot be sated.
Don’t cork them with silence.
Caress them with soft
tyranny, lick them with your
wishes, fill them with your
dreams to make reality.

A list or a catalog.
Alphabetical anatomy,
hypothetical gymnastics,
hyperbolic sensuality
amplified by silence.
Cut the hungry beast
and unleash his hounds
on every inch of
a painter’s fantasy.

Laughter is a coin with two sides;
the blushing face of a beloved
and her soft palpable pitchfork
tail. A coiled tale of insecurity
in comparison to perfection.
Only compared to a painter’s
embellished strokes
made invisible by stillness,
a poet’s envious words
made deaf by an eye’s demand,
and a composer’s romantic hymn
made unbearable by loneliness.

She appraises herself in silence
and laughs when I touch her.

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Dead Languages

When our voices stopped
we realized the silence
of the car. Even the usually
fickle transmission was
a silent assassin.
Her fingers moved like
conspiracy as she tapped
an uncomfortable beat
into her expensive purse.
I rolled the window down
to let breath into the void.
She cursed loudly
and hit me.
The car jerked temporarily
into the other lane
and then back into
the dead silence of a long
car ride.

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Briser Mon Existence En Deux

Put your fingers to your lips
and peddle to the gas
while our tiny car whips
air against your rebelling face,
my telling face, and your hair.
Such are our day trips
when days are so long
that speaking of satisfaction
is a betrayal. Such that each word
resembles the 2nd mouth,
the 9th circle,
the oceans of thirsty men.

Such was our lifeboat,
adrift if not drowning
and silent, always silent,
to save us from betrayal
and the danger of putting words
to the peddle
instead of feet.
Inside our heads we can only
hope that the other dies first
to prevent them from
the torture of
this lifeboat alone.

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Notes on the Mount

The last thing she removed from her travel bag
were the tissues she used to wipe my face.
To wipe her face.
Tissues from Austria. Tiny little surrender flags
to quell a flood – a flood older than Noah
and his boat.

And could you imagine the tears he cried
when on solid ground again surrounded by nothing
except the brown dirt of a clean world
In utter humanity.
Like her pupils, the center of her eyes.

She had said it. Something she didn’t realize
somewhere between mundane conversations
like “how’s the weather”. How was she to know?
How was I to tell her? Abraham was silent
on his way up the mountain when he still believed
that his trip back would be alone.

She knew that sons had to be sacrificed. And that time
could not stand still. She knew Jesus had wept.
Even as the sun is still over head
held by the hand of the Lord – time still passes. In hearts,
in minds, in swords, and in history.
So she delicately retrieved the tissues. The rough
recycled toilet paper had felt too much
like thorns on her cheek.

The nature of tears goes all the way back to the garden
before a savior was needed. Long before the juice
of a pomegranate could remove the skin
of an apple. Do you think the snake cried?
Having been nothing but the agent of the Lord
Pushing forward history – so He could have a Son.
So He could lose His Son – perhaps the most human act of all.
As we learned from Abraham.
A father crying the world into a flood.
Faith in silence, silent in faith, tears for tears.

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In The End of Things… We’d Do It Again. Even If Its Because We Must.

Today a long drive didn’t cure my fear
Nor the insomnia it breeds.
A round trip ticket across the universe to here
Gave me more dreams to leave
To those with enough doubt to sleep.

A shaking hand sifts through pills
The treasure map said there would be answers there.
My hands marked with an x. Silence kills.
I wish I could accept that questions don’t have answers.
But they do – so silence kills – and sleep is rare.

The bartender, with the pirate’s patch
Asks what’s good with such worries
While passing another drink, no strings attached,
He’ll get a sainthood if he hurries.
It’s crowded, but at least it’s not silent.

Despite having nothing to say, I beg her to talk,
The bar gets empty after three.
She moves like a puppet whose master is gone
She drinks and then walks.
Reflecting on the night, she’ll never remember me.

My scurvied mind begs for something more substantive
than anemic moments without wonder.
Adrift in a silent ocean, a universe to give,
stars that mean nothing, an empty horizon yonder
Too vast to be caught. Too silent to brave.

But doesn’t all this torment beg the question?
I’d prefer a mirage to nothing,
An explorer to a master,
Countless sand to one giant rock,
Falling as opposed to hovering,
So why doesn’t my heart beat faster?

But it beats slow, and between beats
only silence, blood, and sickness.
Until we die.

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Sound Waves

The prospect of silence frightens me
Stone, upon stone, upon stone
Human beings are opposed to tranquility.

A man, having lost the wind, dies at sea
waves crash, bringing his body home
The prospect of silence frightens me

In the garden cave we were all free
Left unshackled by the unknown
Human beings are opposed to tranquility. 

A feast of ash leaves me hungry
Fire having removed the spirit grown
The prospect of silence frightens me. 

Perfection is another form of heresy
to worship something we cannot own
Human beings are opposed to tranquility.

The fate lies in the seed, well before the tree
bone upon bone upon bone upon bone
The prospect of silence frightens me
Human beings are opposed to tranquility.

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