The Silence

There has been silence

Deafening from my pen

In recent months –

A tumultuous silence,

An agitated silence,

A frustrated silence,

An inevitable silence –

Brought on by inaction.

Just as life deadens when

It seems finally ready to alight,

This silence descended just

As I was finding my voice.

It has reigned over me

In silence,

With a silence the silence

Is envious of –

Even though it is of

Its own orchestration.

It is such a silence –

A deprecating silence,

An intimidating silence,

A battering silence,

An intruding silence –

That takes thoughts

Of constructing narrative

And distorts them,

The void bitterly

Betraying its empty spaces

By filling them with

Lethargic apathy.

Months pass by

As Spring blossoms to Summer,

With hours clocking up

In a place filled with

An oppressive reticence

Guised within

Idle conversation.

My pen gathers dust

On the shelf back home

While the silence collects

On my portable pedestal,

Weighing heavily

In my chest,

Getting heavier

All the time.

That silence becomes a drug

Inhaled with

An addict’s relish

Through the ear in the dark;

Its embrace easily accepted

Because it means

Taking flight

To a desk in my room

Without a license,

Within isolation.

But it is at a festival –

Exposed,

Where silence is vapour-thin,

Mythical,

Without form or shape

But with its participants

Nonetheless –

That it becomes progressive again,

Twisting into spiralling

Columns of sudden noise

That my weakened wrist

Struggles to record perfectly.

Five minutes of production

Beneath a sporadic ray of sun

Within my tent

And all is well once more –

Because silence only ever

Becomes its bearer’s end.