Further Ruminations on Silence

The French saying goes,

‘If you can’t say anything more beautiful than silence, then shut up.’

And I try and I try to say beautiful things

We try and we try and always we’re waiting for the golden silence –

But we will all talk nothings to death.

Re-constructing everyday narratives

To remember ourselves

But the silences in between become like howls

And the words melt into each other

And I can’t find a gap to stick my thumb into.

And so I’ll sing and I’ll sing and I’ll talk and I’ll talk

And I’ll weave together the nothings between our doings

‘til I feel the silence harder,

‘til I lick the silence harder,

‘til the silence explodes inside me,

‘til I pant and fall into silent arms.

There we’ll meet and there we’ll meet with silence.

And I look at my hand – empty, unfurled,

And it feels better that way

Most days, than to be full and weighed

and filled like the air.

All day I’ll wear your smiles, your words, your slurs,

And attacks upon my person and the patchwork of a life I stitched from nothing,

Or what was left for me in.

Piles and scraps I scooped up from kitchen surfaces and delivered in

Taped up cardboard boxes.

I watch it spill out of my hands and clatter on the bottom of monumental troughs of

metal.

Squiggles of spirited drivel on sheaves of paper flew away from me –

And already, there was more to be silent about.

I thank my fans and adorers for allowing me to forget

The parts of me who made me I.

Thank you for watching me crumble as you pass on by

I welcome your silent nothing, unseeing eyes -

I want to see me in them.

I want to make you smile

We must seek refuges when we wish to hear the clatter and din –

The everything and nothing going out and in.