We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

The Chelsea Hotel
We remember it well
An' its splendid interior decor
By never setting foot there
A very Bohemian Rhapsody
Two Dylans are thrilling
One Bob an' one Thomas
One life and one death
A song and poetic requiem
A Sad Eyed Beautiful moment
Another unquietly into the night
Embracing the dread valley below
Sweet Syd and Saint Nancy
Perished like lovers in drama
No light at yonder window
For a rocking Romeo and Juliet
Breathless in period splendour
Lovers in tragically beautiful embrace
Immortality in the perfect place
Edie set her room on fire
Our heroine couldn't get much higher
As the ceiling just got lower
Another window was another score
When the ceiling hit the floor
Unbroken she was beautiful like a woman
Dancing eyes across the hotel floor
Her world moving in that revolving door
The Chelsea Hotel has more to tell
That Hotel California couldn't rival
That's why it’s there in New York City
An island of dreams in a concrete ocean
Where all lost writers find a paradise
Checking in is our one remaining dream
Checking it out our beautiful possibility.

If I versed God in a game of pool,
Would his style of play be awkward or cool?
Would he miss some shots, just to be kind?
Or sink them all, leaving me behind?
When the game ends, would he leave the room bored?
Or stay back and help me move my skills forward?

The streaming light of evening filters,
through the gauzy curtains hung above;
My day was restless and filled with pain,
the emptiness inside replaced past love.

I watch the curtains flutter like eyelashes,
as rainbow colors streak against the walls;
An old armchair embraces my wounded body,
the doorbell rings as someone comes to call.

No movement from my solitude to answer,
the wretched sense of loss has overwhelmed;
My mind and heart with tortured loneliness,
no other man would enter this vacant realm.

This grieving happens when lost love erases,
the humanity and wholeness of our being;
I pour a drink with hopelessness and sadness,
without him there's just no one else worth seeing.

Gone astray again but given a second chance,
to show remorse and pledge his love once more;
But this time there'll be no waiting at the altar,
he'll never walk again through my front door.

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
resides a secret;
a dark spot on your soul –
a malignant little horror
that threatens to destroy
your sense of self worth.

Maybe it’s a butter knife
with an in-congruent rust spot
on one side of the blade…
Maybe it’s a random salad fork,
the final piece remaining
from a long forgotten flatware set,
with a fossilized chunk of radicchio
lodged between the third and fourth tines.

Probably it’s the fork.

There it has sat
without being moved;
without being touched;
just existing as the metaphor that it is
for 8 straight wash cycles.
The result has never varied.
The dirt remains.

Soon will come a ninth wash cycle.
You hope that things will change.
You know that they will not.
Despite this unwavering conviction
that the fork will always be *****,
the next time you run the cycle,
open the dishwasher door,
peer through the gauzy veil
of lemon scented fog
and see the small bit of filth
you will still feel disappointed.
You will grow a little bitterer.
You will be a little more contemptuous.
The world will be a deeper shade of gray.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

You can go
right now
into the kitchen
to the bottom rack of the dishwasher and
reach down
with a trembling hand
to grasp destiny.

You are bigger than this fork.
You are bigger than this fork.

You
are bigger
than this fork.

With a sense of control firmly clasped between your fingers
take that 15 uncomfortable seconds
to scrape away the debris with your thumbnail
and then be free.

BE FREE

Deep and resounding will be
the sigh of relief;
the utter completion;
the contentment absolute
that you experience
when you place that clean salad fork
back in the drawer.

It will never match
the new silver
that your In-Laws gave you last Christmas, but
at least it will be clean and
in its home
safely ensconced
in that wire organizer.

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
is a chance for redemption.

The setting of traps
has always seemed
like a tacit endorsement
of the mice.

Acknowledgement.
Validation.
Admission of failings as a homeowner –
(cracked baseboards or an unsealed gap in the door.)

We are usually responsible
for our own infestations, after all.

The relationship with the mice is codified
“you are vermin,
I am not.
I will ****.
You will die.”

Thus the mice are transfigured,
Christ-like.
Frozen in fear,
frozen in time,
laid bare
on a sticky, chemical
altar of sacrifice.

Saviors
giving their lives
so that we may preserve
those unwanted crumbs
in the vacant space
between the couch and loveseat
where the vacuum won’t reach.

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

And when the time does come

Where I lose my very thoughts

Right before the last rung

On the verge of fall

When all that I have left to grab

Is this simple plea

With what little time I have left

Throw your arms round me

Then kindly whisper in my ear

As you hold me tight

At that point all I need to hear

Is it's going to be alright

I have been away for too long
In a solitude, burried with remorse
For I've lost a very close loved one
And the situation got worse

I prayed to be taken away
For my life to end
As soon as possible
Coz nothing much was left to mend

Tears rolled down my cheeks
To stop the negative thoughts
Got taken back many times
To untie the invisible knots

Voices got into my ears
That ached to explode my temple
Closing my eyes eveytime
A picture painted, to resemble

It's you, O'mum...that I can't get over with
Life seems, more like a lego
Feelings that can't be put into words
Every bit pierces through the core

Your smile, your beauty, your essence
Has all been captured by this heart
Now, in troubled weak times
Another scene peeps as an art

How will I ever, comfort myself
That now I am all alone
None that are left by my side
All have fallen and gone

May your soul rest in peace
Exactly, a month today
Missing you heaps in this crowded shell
Hope to meet you, someday...


©sim