We live in a world of talkers,
Of shouters, of debaters, of know it alls.
Listening is a long extinct creature,
Unheard of by a species that has devolved to simply wait their turn to talk.
Conversations no longer flow like rivers,
Instead they are puddles:
Started, then abandoned to become bone dry.

We live in a world of talkers,
All raising their volume to be heard,
Shouting that their opinions are fact.
No being is exempt from the epidemic,
The infectious itch to crank the volume dial right
And scream that the other talkers are wrong.

We live in a world of talkers,
Of screamers, of bigots, of smart alecs
In a universe not made for this noise.
The voices get louder, the status updates get longer, the protests get deadlier.
We live in a world of talkers
And soon we will live in a world of mutes.

Glory to the sacrifice that happens in the hidden night, the silent acts of selflessness for which a nation fights.

Yet ridiculed and condemned for changing a 50 year long cycle, far too worn in to be seen as anything but spiteful.

Lost in calculated measures never possessing any direction, still terrible are those who work to make the right corrections.

Holding on to ridge tradition that's forgotten it's own place in time, never fully realizing that it had crossed it's own imaginary line.

Knowing is the key to flowing with the winds of change, even though to many might see it all as strange...we cannot deny the only constant, the certainty of change.

some claimed the paddies smelled like
fetid fishes, *****; some said like the dung of oxen, peasants
or other beasts who squatted there  

others whispered the fields reeked of death  
while I found no odor to be grander evidence
of life’s languorous longing for itself  

we marched those mired moors, as hunters
of invisible prey--ourselves too being stalked, or worse,
mocked by other hairless apes,  

who like we, sought light, but
could divine darkness far better, for we
knew little of night, its sacred riddles  

some said those places reeked  
of rotted flesh, the festering relics of our deeds
I inhaled deeply, slowly  

only rich, fecund stories
were revealed to me, ones I fear yet
this silent night

All I have to do is dream -
You sang in quivering vibrato ,
By the sparse light of a lamp
That shone phosphorescent
Onto your anatomy
All wrapped up loosely
In a black buttoned-up sweater,
Knee high socks and
Uncovered thighs,
Tender and shaking -
And if there is only -This-
Here, and now,
It is more then enough for me,
The fortress for two,
The cornerstone and
The dancer.

-Jamie F. Nugent

there is, after all,
one thing
(after my breath)

–a star–

hung loose
and into the night
(which is my soul)

dreaming through
moist lips
and the cup of flower

a kissing of pale light;
the rough newness of rain;
and the smell softly afterward.