Silence
SILENCE
You must expose your inner self again,
Must codify in words your pleasure or pain:
This poem will extract a part of your life,
Will cut experience free like a knife.
No past, no future; there is only now.
Now you try to write a poem, but how?
Glasses steamed up with nervous breath,
And the thunder if your pencil drops: death
Of your thought train - your oar falling in a pond,
Rippling for ever in your mind.
The silence is choking, you cannot call
For help. You sink or swim alone. No help at all.
Even clock-ticks would be a welcome measure
Of your time left, but there is no time, no pain, no pleasure
As the white paper yawns before your pencil.
You must learn to resolve this stress - no one to counsel.
Time crawls for you, races for another: inner strife.
You are the sole oarsman on this journey - your life.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Written for Paula Swanson’s competition BREATHE IN THE SILENCE
Copyright © Sidney Beck | Year Posted 2010
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