Silence

[This is a picture prompt entitled "Silence" from the Real Toads site. It brought to mind a poem about Silence I wrote back in 1963, when I was sixteen. It was a turbulent time in my life, emotionally speaking, and my poems then bespeak a deep unhappiness and lack of ease within myself,  typical of adolescent angst, but exaggerated by a sensitive poetic nature, and a painful childhood.]

Silence
Punctured by the aged creak of time
Pervades the vague lost hope of day's tomorrow;
Underlined by melodies of sadness,
Haunting, whispering through the years -
A voice -
Hidden in the sound of many voices.
Fearing silence, fearing thought, afraid
To let the sound of silence free the memories again,
I leave it
Dormant in the darkness of some sky,
waiting for the world to sleep,
to ask it in, to let it seep
across the blackened world - to Be.

(Silence -
The remnant of a quietude long centuries ago,
Conceived in some lost thoughtful time and passed along
To hurried, worried, frenzied man
escaping in the midst of confused time
To his haven of forgetfulness,
A dream.)

A Monastery of the Heart

[image from google]

Some days,

when the news

everywhere

is bad,

when the endless

talking and

talking and talking

of the Talking Heads

makes me shake

my own
befuddled head

at the

utter futility

of all those Words

and conjectures,

all the

completely unproductive

histrionics,

I turn the tv off.

I do not turn on

the radio.

I live in

the sweet silence

of No Words,

and No Sound,

save those of the breeze

blowing by,

the creak of

the porch swing,

and the sweet twitter

of the small

neighbourhood birds,

the pecking

of that darned

demented woodpecker

on the tin garage roof,

punctuating

the tranquil sound

of

silence.

Routinely,

I turn the noise

completely off,

(or never

turn it on),

and retreat

to the

sweet peace

of the monastery

in my heart.