I am quiet in a line of on-lookers, big-thinkers, hell-raisers
I sing a song to a corner in the room
It winks and blinks along the beat as
Large shadows confidently raise their arms in triumph.

I am sitting still, a floating ocean depth silence
Watching waves crash and clatter miles overhead--
What fun they must be having out there in the world!
Where the blue is sometimes yellow or pink and
All one knows is not only the dark, deafening hush of
Blue--Where
The colors really taste like they advertise:
Savory sweet honey orange, supple plump green melon,
Ripe for the picking, these--

These are the pickers.
With their power-tool loudness, their "I can fix it!"
The red-runners, the green-makers.
Their lawns rolling out like gold ****** dresses
Reveling in their own chaste gold underskirts under a matching
Gold sun
The earth bowing her shoulders to make room

I am the crisp subtle crunch between bites
The shamed blouse of the *****
The sufficiently watered bud among a field of tall daisies
The pause in your breath
The silence of an empty house

The quiet lemon shavings left on
The quiet cutting board,
Bleeding rind by way of knife

The metaphor in a poem -- waiting in quiet verse
To rear its head to the reader

How many empty glass bottles can you shove into a bag
Before it all leaks out the bottom
I am the bottom
A soft reflection in the train-car window

I see you all.
I hear you.

I don't know quite yet if
I understand you
Rambling on in high buildings with your
***** reared high.
Whether love is just temporary obsession or
If one can make it to death without truly living.

But I do know, quite often, that there is meaning
In complete
Silence.

--
c