29 Silence poems

The obvious is difficult To prove. Many prefer The hidden. I did, too. I listened to the trees. They had a secret Which they were about to Make known to me, And then didn’t. Summer came. Each tree On my street had its own Scheherazade. My nights Were a part of their wild Storytelling. We were Entering dark houses, More and more dark houses Hushed and abandoned. There was someone with eyes closed On the upper floors. The thought of it, and the wonder, Kept me sleepless. The truth is bald and cold, Said the woman Who always wore white. She didn’t leave her room much. The sun pointed to one or two Things that had survived The long night intact, The simplest things, Difficult in their obviousness. They made no noise. It was the kind of day People describe as “perfect.” Gods disguising themselves As black hairpins? A hand-mirror? A comb with a tooth missing? No! That wasn’t it. Just things as they are, Unblinking, lying mute In that bright light, And the trees waiting for the night.

The fog is a kind of silence that you can see it takes the edges off everything i like the fog i am often the fog

These be Three silent things: The falling snow. . the hour Before the dawn. . the mouth of one Just dead.

Does not mean silence. The absence of moon in the day sky for example. Does not mean barely to speak, the way a child's whisper makes only warm air on his mother's right ear. To play pianissimo is to carry sweet words to the old woman in the last dark row who cannot hear anything else, and to lay them across her lap like a shawl.

There is the sudden silence of the crowd above a player not moving on the field, and the silence of the orchid. The silence of the falling vase before it strikes the floor, the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child. The stillness of the cup and the water in it, the silence of the moon and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun. The silence when I hold you to my chest, the silence of the window above us, and the silence when you rise and turn away. And there is the silence of this morning which I have broken with my pen, a silence that had piled up all night like snow falling in the darkness of the house— the silence before I wrote a word and the poorer silence now.

There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hush’d—no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

When I come to view about steadfastness Espousal is as ever Evil never unravels Memory was and will be yet mercy flows Mercies to me and mine Night rainy my family in private and family I know I know short conviction have losses then let me see why To what distance and by what path I thought you would come away _____________ 1 Battered out of Isaiah Prophets stand gazing Formed from earth In sure and certain What can be thought Who go down to hell alive is the theme of this work I walk its broad shield Every sign by itself havoc brood from afar Letting the slip out Glorious in faithfulness Reason never thought saw 2 You already have brine Reason swept all away Disciples are fishermen Go to them for direction Gospel of law Gospel of shadow in the vale of behavior who is the transgressor Far thought for thought nearer one to the other I know and do not know Non attachment dwell on nothing Peace be in this house Only his name and truth 3 Having a great way to go it struck at my life how you conformed to dust I have taken the library Volumes might be written ambiguous signs by name Near nightfall it touches it Nothing can forbear it So fierce and so flaring Sometimes by the seaside all echoes link as air Not I cannot tell what so wanton and so all about 4 Fields have vanished The Mower his hopes Bow broke time loose none but my shadow she to have lived on with the wood-siege nesting in this poem Departed from the body at home of the story I'm free and I'm famished And so to the Irish Patrol sentinel ensign Please feel my arms open 5 The issue of legitimation Identity of the subject Circumcision of a heart driven outside its secret Elysian solitary imagination by doubt but not by sight Fear that forever forever perfect Charity casts out The Canticle is an allegory unchangeable but changeable Fluttering robes of Covetous He is incomprehensible he makes darkness his covert 6 Ages pre-supposed ages the darkness of life out of necessity night being a defense by day the cause and way to it From same to the same These joining together and having allegiance Words are an illusion are vibrations of air Fabricating senselessness He has shattered gates thrown open to himself 7 Though lost I love Love unburied lies No echo newlyfledge Thought but thought the moving cause the execution of it Only for theft's sake even though even perturb the peace But for the hate of it questionless limit unassuaged newlyfledge A counter-Covenant 8 Mysterious as night itself All negligently scenery if Nothing could be seen Sacraments are mysterious Ambiguous in literal meaning the Pentateuch the Angels John all men form a silent man who wrote the author down Sackcloth itself is humility a word prerogatives array Language a wood for thought over the pantomime of thought Words words night unto night 9 Drift of human mortality what is the drift of words Pure thoughts are coupled Turn your face to what told me love grazed here at least mutinous predominant unapparent What is unseen is eternal Judgments are a great deep Confession comes to nought half to be taken half left From communion of wrongdoing doubleness among the nouns I feed and feed upon names 10 Claim foreign order dismantling mortal Begotten possibility plummet fetter seem So coldly systems break Fraught atvantaging Two tell againstself Theme theme heart fury all in mutiny Troubleless or sadder Estranged of all strange Let my soul quell Give my soul ease 11 Antic prelate treason I put on haircloth Clear unutterable Secret but tell What diadem bright Theme theme heart fury Winged knowledge hush Billeted near presage such themes do quell Claim foreign order Plummet fetter seem wild as loveDeath Two tell against self 12 Strange fear of sleep am bafflement gone Bat winged dim dawn herthe midmost wide I did this and I But forever you say Bafflement nether elegy herthe otherwise I Irreconcilable theme keep silent then Strange always strange Estrange that I desire Keep cover come cover 13 Lies are stirring storms I listen spheres from far Whereunder shoreward away you walked here Protector unassuaged asunder thought you walked here Overshadow I listen spheres of stars I draw you close ever so Communion come down and down Quiet place to stop here Who knows ever no one knows to know unlove no forgive _____________ Half thought thought otherwise loveless and sleepless the sea Where you are where I would be half thought thought otherwise Loveless and sleepless the sea

Good morning, electorate. We are on good speaking terms but do not speak, which means we must be self-reliant, there are many matters at hand. We’re not close enough to know each other’s good news, bad news, private matters. There are silent streets off public gardens for intimacy and come-what-mays. There is library silence and deadly silence that is a private matter. There is happiness written in white and silent writings, meters overheard. Silent are the voices I no longer hear — after the first word spoken I’d recognize who’s there. There is a playwright’s staging called “business,” silent instructions without dialogue, and the silence that says, “none of your business,” but I have an office, a religion, that holds me responsible for everything. I hardly lift a finger to stop the slaughtering. It’s a little like putting a nickel or a dime in a cup and writing this against death, raking leaves against the changing seasons. My memory is like the first sound picture, The Jazz Singer. I am screening: it must have been October, 1927, I remember skipping along Liberty Avenue, before I learned to dance, I sang, “Hoover in the ashcan, Smith in the White House.” Later in Catalonia I danced the Sardana — with its opening and closing circles that made free and equal the young and old, while the soulful tenora, a revolutionary woodwind, played the dance forbidden by Generalissimo Franco. Further back again toward first silences — alone in the Charleville of my den, I smoked Rimbaud’s clay pipe, I thought “I will never die.” I’m simply telling the impossible truth that made my later studies more difficult. When I first shaved my fake oxtail beard invented by Cervantes, I fought back day-reasoning without understanding such dreams were my squire. I returned with Sancho to Granada, my forefathers’ home, my forbearers’ caves, banderillas in the bull’s neck of my mind. When I was young and difficult, Lorca’s photo near my bed, I saw Twelfth Night, sang Mozart arias, read history textbooks my father wrote. Loyalist, I shot fascists, not Iroquois. I found an old photo of Belmonte, the matador born with deformed legs — he stood so close to the bull the beast had to charge around him. His sword in a cape of silence, he stood erect, motionless, a gypsy in a suit of lights tailored by Goya. Interval....Intermission.... I visited a zoo of languages on the soon-to-be-sunk Statendam, in February touring the Mediterranean with my parents, from the pillars of Hercules to the Bosphorus. In Barcelona, I sided with the brave bull who entered the ring deceived, never having seen a man off a horse, the bull, however noble, sure of death. • I want my work to have the “taste of self”: In the bright, silent mornings of my soul, I refuse my royalties: a bull’s ears, tail, and severed foot. God does not ride a horse, Jesus preferred donkeys. I feed my donkeys carrots, play them operas. A trio, they bray with joy. Because it’s common sense I make noise for the Lord. He wants our kind to read, sing, speak to each other, to rejoice and play to beat the band, horns, drums, bawdy noisemakers. We should give Him the time of day, among sounds, unhearable, bang away, weep with the uncountable suffering others. Among the multitudes, in the swarms, the schools, the hives, rejoice, boo, snore, make noise for the love of noise and questioning, praise Him on Doomsday, He hears the noise of all the world’s blinking eyes. I believe to live as a silent flower is worthwhile. I cannot speak the languages of trees better than birds, who out of gratitude and affection learn arboreal grammar, accents, pronunciation, whatever the weather, but I try because I love a good oak — still, I cannot better the birds    ... “Affection” for my neighbor is easy, “love” difficult. Silence can be affection, silence a perfect herald. Still there is speechless love and silent conversations called gestures, helping hands, sometimes only a loving telephone call. There are equators, latitudes, and longitudes of silence, useful compasses, lighthouses, red and green buoys, red light to port, green starboard, silent foghorns. I remember silent remembrances. Is partial light the opposite of silence? The sun is noisy, gossips earthly languages. Shhh. Trying to find truth. I’ve heard late-night laughter in Roman streets, screeching pigs carried upside down to slaughter. From time to time the living whisper, scream, “Help me! Murder!” Roots tremble. I never heard the noise and silence of mass murder. In Asia and Africa, there are English wildfires. Greek and Latin are still smoldering, flaming African syllables on every tongue. Love, silence, reflection, and revelation in the jungle and pine-barren ashes. I lift my head to music I call gods, whole notes, scales, clefs, and rests that are saints, mullahs, rabbis, atheists, pagans. So I will ask to collect my dead and wounded and you will never hear from me, the unheralded herald, anymore.

No one home. Snow packing the morning in. Much white nothing filling up. A V of birds pulling the silence until some dog across the street barks, and breaks what I call my peace. What a luxury annoyance is. It bites off and keeps just enough of what I think I want to be endless.

Everything contains some silence. Noise gets its zest from the small shark's-tooth shaped fragments of rest angled in it. An hour of city holds maybe a minute of these remnants of a time when silence reigned, compact and dangerous as a shark. Sometimes a bit of a tail or fin can still be sensed in parks.