Silence is not keeping quiet
because you have nothing
to say...

Silence is having a lot
to say but no desire
to speak...

Words don’t come to me just when I want them,
But I want them when they come,
My brain feelers have strained, and whined, and searched,
But coveted verses won’t be found,
Stanzas can be spun in an effortless way, but fitting words come unannounced,
What for patience? What for hard work?
I haven’t found these useful in this art.
Time and art make art.

It is hard to speak about
what you want to speak about
when all you do is speak about
the way you’d speak about

what you want to speak about.
Things get worse then when you try
to speak about the way you'd like to
speak about these things you hold so dear

that you can't help but speak about them,
to the point you mean to speak about
the way you'd love to speak about them.
But is unbearable when after so long

of trying everything to explain the how,
you fall out of love with what you wanted
to speak so madly about, and all is left
are the ghosts of departed quantities of genius,

the maddening silence after your great idea is gone,
that cigarette ash flake floating in the afternoon,
so graciously convinced of being smoke,
perhaps even a cloud.

Should I be stuck inside these walls forever
I would carry on like any other
No company to keep me from thinking
And all silence to encourage my killing
Don’t worry, my actions are legal
Should I take it to my body it’ll be lethal
But my mind is the victim here
I always keep my pencil near
No matter what the weather
I always feel like doing the latter
Should I be stuck inside these walls forever
I vow I will never get better