Am I merely an entertaining guest?
If so – in the course of my entertainment
Perhaps I should have resigned
All of these cursed talents one after the other
On the principle that no matter what -
There is no way that I could keep them all.
Perhaps if someone else had these curses
And they were not in my brain -
Maybe then I could become a regular Joe.

Yet I ask – Is it that I am the one let in
To show off my own wit or is it
That I was let in to see the wit of others?
I call upon heaven itself to bear witness
To the fact that even now,
I have never once opened my lips.
Even so I am told by most that they have
Never had a more improved conversation
With a man in their life. Strange.

How crafty and artful I must be to
Speak without ever saying a single word.
Have I some gift to UN-people them from
Their dominion over their own
Ideas of Love?
Or are all of us mere objects of our affections
Hiding about as slaves in a church while not
Actually believing in anything?
Could a slave defend the citadel anyway?

In my mind I form designs toward
All sentiments of every religion finding
That beauty has its place buried
So deep in worship that even the
Church is but a slave to its effects.
But life itself is not so adamant.
It comes and it goes flowing through
First one and then another having no
Such chain or restraints as does the
Fleeting song of beauty which in time
Steals all beauty laying waste to us all.

Likewise, religion too is a waste if it
Is based purely on the beauty of itself.
My lips are not moving now either
But they are neither dead or fully alive.
But if they could they surely would say
More than an entire encyclopedia could
Say by just saying that one single word aloud.
Yet if I said that one word aloud
Everyone would take me to the corner
Pinning the badge of idiot upon me.

So remember of me this -
I am as much a slave to this mind
As this mind is a slave to life.
The price for this mind’s freedom has
Within it an honest reckoning of which
I can neither avoid or deny.
Inside my mind there is a slave fighting
Diligently with my every sentiment of honor –
Both cherished and despised by this, my inner revolt.

Yet I grow ever stronger even as I battle myself.
Though I am often forced back down
To a slavery system which forces me
To be a slave to that one word that has
Within it the ability to set us all free.
While it both loses us and finds us
Somewhere inside of this silenced art.
I need not say the word for if you are
A slave to it – as am I – you already know it.

Ssshh – just write about it – don’t say it out loud.