"soundlessness" poems
Eve of Holi
A spring eve that’s all different from others
Zephyrs blowing away the leaves
Orange sky adding the flavours
Blooming flowers nodding in a rhythm
So Ironical is nature of this evening
That all these beauties act as ornaments of Kali
On a normal evening man would work
They would work appraising weather
They know it will not last long, they enjoy
Today they as if ignore it, of morning celebrations
Morning is gayest morning of the year
Every reason to see every man
Mankind being unanimous
Evening on contrary balancing it to a usual day
An unexplainable soundlessness, vacuum of thoughts
A day depicting environment without men on work
Streets still hold colours on their chest
But this colour no more is a sign of happiness
People meet each other, everyone has a smile
But that doesn’t match with nature suit
There smiles have scope within its sight
Body of people walking on street enjoy zephyr
Their mind stay startled of unusual quietness
Standing on my entrance, I observe
A swinging litchi tree, missing sound of saw mill
Smiling flowers, orange cloudy sky
Empty streets, parked wagons, and utterly silence
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 4:09 PM UTC
Why do I always feel excluded,
As though I'm worth only air?
I'm shy, that doesn't mean I have no interest.
Why do I feel left out,
when they won't invite me into their group?
When I work silently by myself,
No one willing to change this soundlessness.
I wish to speak up,
but my word's are trapped,
Whimsically working their way up,
wanting to say, "I want to help!"
Why do I feel so excluded?
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 1:02 PM UTC
I challenged him
burly ******* captain
stubbled beard as coarse as sandpaper
standing there in muggy dusk
arms akimbo,
mama san starched uniform stained with swagger and sweat
two silver captain's bars ******* any of my brilliance or bravado
all he had to do was speaketh the words
“need those maps, head out at 2230 hours”
and that was a death sentence
which was commuted to life
if four decades since has been life
there are not words for the black
of moonless jungle
except nothingness and paralytic fear
and through that lightless, lifeless, abyssness
I crawled, crouched and crept along
sometimes as slowly as the minute hand on my watch
the silence, the silence, the silence
became my splintered cross
to carry to my place of crucifixion
at my Calvary Hill behind barbed wire, blue lead barrels and
fearful eyes
silence, silence, silence, black wordlessness
black soundlessness
punctuated by shallow precious breaths
and imagined slant-eyed demons
waiting behind each berm
to turn the timeless night into timelessness
of more black
should I chamber a round?
and follow its solitary sound
into the silent holy night
and shatter my own fragile fright?
would that end this knowing without knowing?
and answer the question,
“is this fear worse than the answer?”
since questions have answers but answers have nothing
the nothing of which I was sure I would become a part
in the silence, the silence, the silence
of the black canopied jungle
in Tay Ninh Province
in 1967
where I was sentenced to death but allowed to live
in silent, black wordlessness
sentenced to live
to wonder, after all these years of shivering fright and flickering light
did the captain become a human?
And was I really allowed to live?
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 9:58 AM UTC
Silence cuts like a slow knife,
Its blade,
Ice cold,
Ruptures my bowel,
Eats up my yearning,
Swallows my defiant screams.
I'd rather rage,
I'd rather have a storm,
Than cruel silence.
I'd choose a song of thunder,
Over a minute of soundlessness.
I'd rather slam doors,
Smash our dinner plates,
Hurl books from their shelves,
I'd rather break things,
Than have the silence break me.
Can I have a moment of silence?
No.
Why can't we just talk it out?
No.
You need to calm down.
No!
Nov 22, 2019
Nov 22, 2019 at 10:39 PM UTC
I speak the language of
The gods;
Silence.
Years of practice, flexing
Soundlessness
Repeatedly
Until its grip around
My brain's mouth became
Inescapable.
Dead center of any
Construction site;
Loud meetings,
City streets.
I carry a flame of tranquility
Anywhere.
This morning I watched the
Sun rise over Oslo from
The roof of my
Workplace. Pink touching
Blue pushing February
Darkness gently away,
As if whispering a child
Back from sleep.
Seagulls and crows
Dancing. Silences matching
Inner with outer,
I stood smiling.
Smiling so
Hard I
Cried.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:38 AM UTC
Flies buzz around the still room
like dogs chasing cars.
An old crone is heard nagging beyond the door,
"Don't you think you're leaving to one of them bars!"
Light hasn't entered the room in days;
the dark green curtains have all been closed.
The old lady began banging against the wood,
"You still need to clip my toes!"
The room reeked of cigarette smell.
A half-burnt one existed within the ash tray.
Weeping could be heard from the other side.
"Honey, open up. Don't leave me astray.."
Next to the lime-green chair where he lay,
a dried up pen could be seen leaving his hand.
One scribbled note stood out upon the lamp table.
"Can you get off your *** and fix the **** TV stand?!"
Matilda,
I have loved you for sixty-three years, sixty of which we've been married and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but during these past couple of years, you've become heartless. You've changed and it saddens me entirely. You're not the woman I fell in love with all those years ago, but rather this ghost that preys on the misfortune of others. Maybe it was all the radiation treatment the doctors performed or perhaps the endless drugs they made you take to numb the pain, but regardless of the mental distortion you now face, I can no longer bear it. I love you, Matilda, but it breaks my heart to see you like this. I'm sorry, but this is indeed goodbye.
-Henry
The soundlessness lasted for weeks
except for the one shot that ran.
Nothing living remained in that room,
ending the life of that one old man.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
Scent of the storm you arouse in my heart
sends rainbow of blessings to bathe
my dreams
in showers of tasteful repeats with which
to start a cascade
of crystaline waterfall in glass-streaming rays.
Soul-warming feelings
in my pounding breast always astound me,
then reeling, set me alight.
Can a soul drown in vibrating soundlessness ?
Threads of an almost-created new heart stand
now impaled
by arrowed decisions because they have found
a fresh start.
They have embroidered time at each corner
of my blazing need,
stitched it with seed-beads to spare
the over-sewn grasses of autumnal hope
to show that though worn,
life is not yet beyond careful repair.
That being so, the taste
of passion's sweet stormy voice will never
again become effaced.
Oct 7, 2010
Oct 7, 2010 at 2:26 PM UTC
my chest is as smoke, the atoms
are too far apart
from
each
other, and otherwise
like a half-knit-yarn-scarf
fingers dug in and pulled, and
pulled
until the knots all
hung loose
rattling, rattling
there was a nothing there
and i was nothing for
more than a moment.
her voice on the line
was the fog that seeped
around my mind
still seeps up from
the grating now
I am flat, crumbling
stone
loosely in the ground now
pelted by rain and cold
I am cold fever chill
I am the hollow, drifting
gutteral and weakened howl
of the wind, whipping
now languidly, now violently at
my father's tombstone.
His name is carved out
the open grating between my shoulders
he left this world, woken
in the dead of night
in the pain of death
fading to confusion
to the loss of voluntary
and involuntary function
he raised his arms
opened his mouth soundlessly
and wept wide-eyed
into the frozen-form.
the scene of my absence
is the broken record
the image that haunts
I can picture vividly
the sofa he laid on, the burgundy carpet
the bad-body smells
of death, and incontenance
the flashing lights
of a too-late ambulance
the echoes and shadows and smells
clung to and possessed the walls, the floor
for months after
the echo of his open mouth
and open eyes, animal
it is a home again now, I think
but
I am a shade of
his fear, his reduction, his
soundlessness.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
::::::::::
in stillness...in what appears to be quiet
so many things take place...
there's buzzing, hearts are pounding,
faraway drums beating, like thunder, blaring,
in a soundlessness that reverberates,
:::::
no one can tell when dewdrops fall
not a sound permeates the air
they have long been nourishing,
moistening the grass of the earth, yet,
no one hears, no one sees, how, or when...
the leafholder, without a fiber of speed
in its body....devours a whole leaf,
there is no chewing, or munching heard
even when watched, it gives no sounds.
:::::
my purple dendrobium proudly
shows new flower buds with such calm,
from the base of the cattleya orchid, young
green roots take a grasp on the driftwood.
how, or when these took place,
i really didn't hear, or notice.
:::::
on the street, a humble, lightweight
house spider, with less than eight legs
suddenly moved....like tumbleweeds,
rolling with the blowing of a gusty wind,
a crawling see-through ball, entangling
fallen strands and tiny strips of street dirt,
i almost stepped on it,
i didn't notice....i didn't hear...
the faucet leaks...pail is nearly filled
there's a gap of many seconds, before
each drop falls and touches the surface
of the rising water...too long....most often
too late....when heard, and noticed...
:::::
so many babies...young children disappear, they
pass away...adults die from many unacceptable
causes......some self-inflicted...some make it normal
an entry into statistics....read, heard, with passing winds...
:::::
we live in this noisiest of planets
every nook, every part, occupied
yet, significant parts of this world....of our life
remain unheard...........unnoticed.
"i look....but i don't see...
i listen.....but i don't hear."
Sally
Copyright October 28, 2017
rrab
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 4:28 AM UTC
I fall into the rain, beneath me;
My sky a glittery dust to thee,
Calling the joy I hath not met,
Thou cometh sweetly, but late.
I fall into the cold, and just me;
Only I understand the clouds,
Oh! I cannot seek that ‘tis so loud,
Too much noise, sickly around me!
Those fallen tears around my head;
The soundlessness of one’s fate,
And hark, in such quietness,
The decrepit being of hotness!
Those ragged stars about my hair;
Closing in on me, and my air,
With hues dyed in drowned sunshine,
But proud still, in its dried signs.
For such heat hath closed me;
Hath sifted me away from you.
For such guilt hath haunted me;
Hath kept me away anew.
For such a love, that thou felt;
But not yet felt again, today,
The gaze that I once beheld,
The words my heart cannot say.
Wherefore art thou, my beloved;
For t’is passion is tainted but pure,
To behold, to instill, to demure,
The meaning of this first love.
Wherefore art thou, my paint;
These poems hath not been said,
I see chaos, and not a flesh of fate,
I hath been loving in vain.
Wherefore art thou, my gaze;
Why cannot I see you through my face,
To hear such a bountiful voice,
To be about thee, in this bliss.
Wherefore art thou, my voyage;
I cannot stay this sober longer,
And hysteria, turning into sobs,
Like death, as my heart throbs.
Wherefore art thou, my colour;
Bestowed on thee my honour,
And age, with my fleeting skin,
Waiting in haste, to be seen.
Wherefore art thou, my winter;
Having too many doubts in summer,
Awaiting a lover that lasts,
By the moonlight and stardust.
Wherefore art thou, my rain;
And the sung that sings again,
To release my midnight, its pain—
To be my beloved, then.
Wherefore art thou, my kiss;
I can see your solemnity,
A thousand unsung melodies,
To bless, to make love to me;
Wherefore art thou, my art;
Too much of me is in my heart,
But none with a charm like thee,
Like the poet in fire, that in me.
Wherefore art thou, my sword;
I am bland now, and unheard,
Unheard as the rain that falls,
Amongst the sheltered walls.
Wherefore art thou, my piano;
The sound that arriveth late,
But not late to be my memento—
To remove all conscious hate.
Wherefore art thou, my word;
Improvised but reckless, my Lord,
Ah! Calm but poisonous, like me,
A fastidious silver, like thee.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 2:01 AM UTC
fallen,
like rivulets of wind pluck autumn leaves
and carpet the ground
they'll be revered for a fleeting instance
and become forlorn,
despite their regal golden-cerise mantle
so have my feelings been regarded,
gone berserk and drowned
frothing on their agape mouth
I curse ego's starvation for human love,
when my spirit pleas for detachment-
I bend my knees with shame
for plunging into ocean of emotions,
those that sprint skin deep
with pragmatism blindfolded
I want no lectures on fate
for I've seen its countenance's smirk,
yet I have bowed like a silent monk
and in this coarse parody
of Hermes' loss of wings,
I precipitate down the abyss
feathers melted down
by the selfsame sun I adore-
but I fall with my heart overflowing with love,
and though deep inside it mourns
in soundlessness,
I embrace its bitter tang with stoicism
then I gently close my eyes and whisper:
“I will always love you,
even with your about-face demeanor
wearing garments
of a million queens…”
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 3:21 PM UTC
Sometimes an emptiness can occupy a room with happiness.
Others may thought this as dumbness and hopelessness.
But they don't know your sickness and soreness.
Emptiness is not nothingness nor numbness.
Its soundlessness speaks inner peacefulness
Bringing inexpressible happiness.
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
And as I feel your presence
Receding behind me,
Unable to turn around
I freeze
Unable to take a step forward
A step away from you.
And yet you continue to recede
My nonchalant facade
Fading away with you
And I close my eyes
Knowing when I turn around
You'd have disappeared
Leaving darkness in your place,
Sightlessness
Soundlessness...
Lost to a place
Where I can't reach out
And sense your warm memory.
So I don't turn around.
I don't let my emotions flow,
Slowly opening my eyes
To the sight of a grey
Barren world again.
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 8:55 AM UTC
When the last shot has been fired and the dead have been lain to rest, the warriors now must sit in silence and wait for the battle to be over. Though the leaders have come to terms, the wounds of battle might never heal. All that is left is to wait and see what comes next. The sound of cannon fire and the bugle call sounded the battle to rage on. Now in the silence, the soundlessness is deafening. Louder than any shell explosion. It returns the solider to terror in the night. Knowing peace is harder still because the sense of purpose is lost and guidance has stopped. There is a new enemy and it is from with in. A battle that every warrior must fight after the guns have stopped.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 8:18 AM UTC
sleep
drops
on
your
body
gravitating
toward
the
embellishment
of
dreams
and
then
running
off
into
a
reality
chiming
the
bone
to
make
sound
in
soundlessness
to
knit
the
walls
together
threadbare,
loose
free
as
a
body
is
like
flotsam
sprinting
back
to
sea
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 10:06 AM UTC
The quiet.
Something so simple
Something that used to terrify me
But now
Now I find myself finding comfort
Comfort in the creaks of the floorboards
Comfort in the wind again the windowpane
Comfort in the soundlessness of it all
The quiet.
No longer something I fear
Instead it becomes something I long for
A moment alone with my thoughts
A moment alone without a care in the world
A moment to appreciate the little sounds around me
The quiet.
Jan 24, 2022
Jan 24, 2022 at 11:52 PM UTC