Beware the silent places
Conversing about the little things
sharing my day with every stranger
I encounter
They don’t always like what I have to say
when will they figure it out
The quiet places are haunting grounds
agonies garnet
ring
of copper
sits in a velvet box
The ring is known to feed
on the hearts of lovers
It is the great rejection
We live in a society obsessed with the strictest
of laws, we speak of our feelings
we share our lives with strangers
Detaching overtime
our latches always snap
Mental door kicked down
I’ve tried to sell the ring before
it came back to me dirty and heavy
The silent places will suck away
our voices, it is an entity unlike
the gods we pray to
The silence is a leech among life
it removes our options
we nod or shake our heads
we wave and it is always unseen
Silence is deaths beginning
it traps us in a never-ending monologue
of self-awareness
within my closet is a top hat
that was once owned by the baron child
of some unknown factory
He lost everything
including his name
Top hats cannot speak
as people bark
or as dogs converse
A top hat with an emptiness
filled only by coins and rejection
The owner of the hat
gave away his life of luxury
in search of a looser life on the ground
as an entertainer
The hat sat empty on a sidewalk
fortune slipped through the crack in the bottom
as it were
the owner chased his coin
into an empty alley
Misfortune rained eroded pennies
across windshields from hell
Unworn, the hat remained in fine shape
I tried the top hat on
it nearly sucked me in
Now it lives high above my head
on a shelf with a color to match
I’m telling you this
because the silence must be broken
we must have music, conversation,
noise
all things to protect our souls
from an unending contagion
I found a book of secrets
printed on leather from an unknown animal
I read the book out loud
when I am by myself
to sustain the stream of survival
I sleep with music playing
at all times
the noise police came one day
to damn me to a world of mute observation
I told them very quickly
if they wish to continue on as an enforcer
of petty laws
to turn on the radio
and listen in on the static
Put your ear real close
and you might yet hear
your very spirit leaves your body
As usual I found myself in handcuffs
led on a cart to a padded room
I chewed through my restraints
and escaped into the night
if not for the clump of my foot fall
I would have become another locus in the static
beckoning for a listening ear
This world is full of invisible rules
between my jumbled sentences
you will find the truth
perhaps you will make it through this night
as I have
Perhaps
