Day's drama comes to a drop
Deep blinds disseminated
Disclosing the doors of dusk
Deathly deafness developed
Darkness deters and dwindles
Discomfort and drudgery
Downtime for an endless deal
Place : 4
Stop explaining—Soft the Tongue,
When Deafness wears a Crown—
The Ear that chooses not to hear
Is Tyrant of the Sound—
The Truth has feet—it walks alone—
Needs not a pleading Guide—
It knocks—but if the Door be sealed,
It passes—unapplied—
To argue with determined Night
Is to instruct the Dark—
The Sun expends no Reasoning
To justify its Spark—
Your Meaning is not made more pure
By Bruising it with Prayer—
The River is not altered by
The Thirst that waits in Air—
Be still—The Pearl explains itself
To those with Eyes to see—
The rest may clutch their chosen Shade
And call it Mystery—
Withdraw your Voice from barren Fields
Where Echo will not grow—
Consent no more your Soul be spent
On those who will not know—
For Silence is the Final Shield
When Hearing is a Wile—
And Peace—does not persuade the World—
It simply—wears its Smile—
When ideas are locked in a cage,
The bot frees poetry of its rage,
Like analgesics on a fresh wound—
A turbulent sea where pains are drowned.
The goal’s not to write, but to refine,
To make each rhythm, form, and word align;
Quick to shape poems to perfection,
Bringing finesse to art’s reflection.
Yet its pen drips with glib emotion,
It revels in stale, putrid notions,
It loots old clichés in broad daylight,
With its spies embedded on every site.
It hums in all ears with tone-deafness,
For its inkwell is void of freshness;
From the poems of the past it steals,
And copyright claims trail its cold heels.
Far better—a creative ally,
With clear, firm bounds to which all comply—
Than crowned as a human replacement,
Or seeking the poet’s mind displacement.
Jack 155 10 Mar 2025
I met my younger self today
He insisted it was at the pub
He needed to be comfy and had much to say
I declined his offer of a pint
Declaring I’m good with the water, thanks anyway
He insisted, come on have a beer, it’s what we do
I told him, one day he will know, he lives in the darkness of extreme
I remind him of the expression of two ears and one mouth
Wishing him mindful awareness, that might cure his deafness
He told me stories that I already know, saying it’s all just about fun
I spoke about all the untold waste, not just of time and money
But of lost days and unexplored capability, potential and provision
I looked my younger self firmly in the eyes
I explained that life shouldn’t be about regrets
But there will be what if’s, maybe’s and I wonder’s
I know he hadn’t heard me, there certainly wasn’t any thank you
I just smiled, knowing that sometime in the future
He will say
I wished I’d met you earlier
I walk a solitary path, a reclusive soul/
Lonely whispers echo where shadows console/
Nobody speaks, nobody sees/
I'm lost in their world, like a silent breeze/
In public, I vanish, an invisible man/
An outcast, a shadow in their grander plans/
Yet within me burns a heart so true/
A Romeo's passion, longing for breakthrough/
I may be deaf, but I hear through skies/
Telepathy bridges what hearing denies/
My silent ears, tune to unspoken sound/
A mind reader, a Psychic yet deaf/
I hear you, feel you, though silence surrounds/
Don't hate me, don't judge what you think you know/
Don't let my deafness mark me with woe/
For I am not less, and I am not weak/
A soul in the shadows, yearning to speak/
The journey stretches, endless and long/
Loneliness binds, but I remain strong/
A road of solitude, yet I've always known/
The quiet holds power, it's my own/
The sky broke, it did not rain,
the clouds did not part,
a faded blue did not fade away,
behind that, an intimation,
a featureless back-lit gray
watched.
Eyes blinked, heads turned,
a silent cacophony plucked
at a collective deafness.
Some presumed, other's assumed,
but all knew
that the space between us, and the All,
was as fragile as the air in our lungs
or those turbulent skies
behind our eyes.
Where have all my years gone?
there I was a mere young twenty-.one
now in a moment it seems 50 years gone
here grey haired bones ache nothing won
I've no memory of these lost years
they are frozen stiff completely still
I had many desires set to accomplish
but content I shall be, whatever it will
My memory is still alive up till the freeze
there I was my stammer still holding me down
now so far it seems to have gone far away
maybe the ice squashed it without a sound
Frustrations abound about my future
I seem to like poetry for I never did before
where did I get it, not even at school
did the freeze open up some closed door
I now feel a divine presence
never known before, God is here
freeze me anytime for this is nice
hey, my deafness is gone as sounds I hear
Life takes many turns and twists
even ice pins you to its wall
I look back now on life as it was
50 years amiss, You can't win them all
(This is an imaginary story that I was frozen solid in cryogenic
labs at age 21, in 1975.
Now, fifty years later, I have been defrosted and the experiment was a success, except for a few tweaks.)
Melodic ingenuity of Ludwig van Beethoven
raised music to the realm of art, cadence woven.
A piano virtuoso, he turned into a composer unique,
initiated the romantic era in coexistent classical music.
He infused momentum in symphony,
sonorous in the ninth with harmony.
A few love affairs he had,
but remained bachelor sad,
lived amidst failed romance in agony.
A romantic, he had a strong personality,
struggled heroically with deafness silently.
Despite affliction caused by leaded wine addiction,
composed transcendent music of designed perfection.
Silence be bright. Do not be like a dull pine needle that cannot pierce the heart.
Nor like the calmness of the river before a storm. Be full of rage at the deafness and blindness of Mankind. The quiet ignorance that dares not speak, see, nor cry when hatred penetrates the wounds. The scars of prejudices have scabbed three times over. That it is the renascence of time becoming old than anew attorning the passage of war to destroy all.
Ludwig von Beethoven number nine*
despite deafness musically sublime
An enigma
wrapped in mystery
covered in secrets
risking hell
A legend
from the ages
bereft of sages
casting spells
The message
nondescriptive
in ephemera
laden tongues
Lucy in the sky
bejeweling
screaming deafness
— silence won
(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)
What’s of the eyes if not to see -
a darkness on the land,
perpetuated by a world
that will not understand.
What’s of the ears if not to hear -
a silence through the night.
A deafness born of leaders with
no care of what is right.
What’s of the lips if not to speak -
a fading muffled voice,
drowned out by those in power who
refuse the people’s choice.
What’s of the hands if not to touch -
a plowshare turned to sword,
held high into the east winds where
the dregs of wrath are stored.
What’s of the heart if not to feel -
an answer bathed in tears
that falls as rain on blood-stained soil…
unchanged throughout the years.
Smell
the most
precious
and last sense
to go
Its
lingering
fragrance
vanishing
slow
A
single
carnation
a bright
yellow rose
Through
deafness
and darkness
till death
—wafting so
(The New Room: December, 2023)
Ludwig van Beethoven raised music to the plane of art
The power of his composition conveyed the cadence of heart
Fused vocal and instrumental melodies in Ninth Symphony unique
Struggled heroically with deafness though life turned silently bleak.
Ludwig von Beethoven
German extraordinaire
composed music for forty-five years
seven hundred and twenty-two works of brilliance
first performance at age seven
deafness did not stop his genius
an inspiration
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