The world should've stopped spinning
The day you stopped being mine
The sun should go dark
And the stars should no longer shine
The moon should fall
No longer grace the sky
Every stream, lake, and ocean
Should all go dry
The bird's should lose their wings
And the breeze should no longer blow
Roses, should never again bloom
Fireflies should no longer glow
The trees should've died away
Not a living thing should be found
Children should've stopped their laughing
Silence, should be the only sound
Beauty and all that is good
Should've ceased to be
But it seems only I stopped living
The day you took your heart from me

North Carolina poet, Jim Wayne Miller, on his goal in writing poetry. "Growing up in North Carolina, I was often amused, along with other natives, at tourists who fished the trout streams. The pools, so perfectly clear, had a deceptive depth. Fishermen unacquainted with them were forever stepping into what they thought was knee-deep water and going in up to their waists or even their armpits, sometimes being floated right off their feet. I try to make poems like those pools, so simple and clear their depth is deceiving. I want the writing to be so transparent that the reader forgets he is reading and is aware only that he is having an experience. He is suddenly plunged deeper than he expected and comes up shivering."

Blowing silence
like a bugle
to announce his dismay

he got set
to make a statement
without speaking for a day

but his mother
just assuming
he had nothing much to say

sent her silent
revolutionary
son outside to play;

outmaneuvered
in the kitchen
by his mother's disregard

for campaigns
of wild muteness,
the rebellion fell apart

to the sound
of scuffing shoes
and the grumble in his heart

'cause silent protest
tends to lose
when no-one's listening very hard..