The Quiet of a Pickwickian World
By Sy Roth

In the silence of my Pickwickian world,
A transcendent quiet stands vigil.
Left to its own devices it rattles around, a
lonely brown-suited courier,
Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next.

Seeks tranquility in a world where,
Fettered by golden reins
Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail
Lanced by coronets of thorns,
Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed
Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills,
A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest.

And they still come--
Tidal waves of disturbances,
Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away
Into a loathsome pile,
Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.


A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters
Where sages once stood
Hanging like KKK castoffs
In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad.

A quiescent quiet demands quiet.
Nestles behind muffled screams
Of ages of piles of rotting flesh.

Dolorous vision of a peaceful world
Where peace packed for a long vacation
To Edens that exist only in fairy tales.
Bring with them untruths of understanding
Swaddled in ******, soiled bedclothes.

Leave me to my silence,
Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge
Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners
Where the highwaymen have no access.

They tremble in your wake,
big, claw-footed
in their earth shattering steps.
Huddled mass
a ghostly tsunami  
inhabitants of the inky corners,
where you cohabit with the spirits of your songs
heard echoing in the ancient caves,
huddled around your icy campfires
in hopes of shooing the spirits from the door.

The dark ones do a jig at your fears,
dance mightily at your shoulder shaking,
erupt in pleasure
in their superiority.
While you cower--
afraid,
singing your sad songs.
Homage to their victories.

Boo rustles the lace curtains.  
They sometimes move to the slightest¬¬ dance of the wind.
The white shade slides them gently some nights
A moonlit soft skritching of plastic O-rings
On the brass bar as he peeks out.
The outside drowns his words.
A blank eye longs for the day while his
Shuttered windows whisper a breathy wail.
A hail of silent words secreted in trained night-clown smiles.
The streets deny it.

He hears the truth tap at his walls,
It drives a pince-nez melody in his darkened cell,
A rhythm wailing in noon darkness.
His darkling thoughts push the delete button,
Push them away like buzzing flies
Where she lies famished in her casket
Sere, sullen creature drained.
Yet another shallow shade of existence.
Emily’s world where did, did not happen—

Behind the nailed-shut doors
Truths pranced once in verdant forests.

Deny them exit, they screamed.
Keep them safe in their hidey-holes.
Wrap them in the black ink of dashed hopes.
With unspoken words –

Not here,
Where spirits, their spirits whimper.

Not here,

Secreted behind the drapes, Boo moans
Caresses his chalky skin,
Behind the windows
And behind the sealed doors
Wrapped in an airless tomb with Emily,
In a secret- secured world beyond their grasp.