Verse of a sort
Disturbing the Silence
We let silence fill the gaps
After words have been said,
The truth is in the spaces,
Once our voices leave our heads.
There’s music in the silence
If you stop to listen still,
In the space where words aren’t spoken,
Where there’s a mind and a will.
But I speak as I do,
Disturbing the silence yet,
Comprehending it all,
And not understanding any of it.
August / September 2005
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LOVE & HATE ARE HORNS ON THE SAME BULL’S HEAD
I seem to plow through women
Like some agricultural machine,
Sowing and planting,
But reaping deceit.
I really love these women,
With their poise and flash,
Their hearts: gold on fire,
And eyes cold as cash.
I can never marry these women,
Although god knows I try;
I hunger for their souls,
And they often make me cry.
I can hate these women,
Equal to the love that I have,
They fill me with easy confidence,
And a sense of impending despair.
Too many times have I fallen,
In love like before,
Never tired of saying:
I love you, some more.
And yet they get attracted,
To the cynic in me,
To the love I can give
And the misery I perceive.
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MAGIC
Deep in the heartland,
In the forest that entraps the night
Under its leafy shade,
In the hollows beneath rocks,
In streams where the water sounds,
And my fingers in it can feel the wet,
I look for magic.
On a stage stuffed with gimmickry,
Lit bright, as nimble fingers prestidigitate,
Simulate wizardry,
In the wide open eyes
Of child and adult in me,
As my breathing pauses –
I look for magic.
In the silent sanctuary of a church,
Behind the oil lamps in a temple,
In the moonwashed smoky night of a flaming pyre,
Beneath the high eaves of ancient caves carved in love,
I seek the truth,
I burst my skin,
I look for magic.
In the house, on the street,
And on the grinding tram beneath my feet,
In the hushed halls of education,
In the warp and weft of celebration,
I look for magic
In the wrong places.
The magic is in me.
22FEB04
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THE GIRLS ON THE BRIDGE
I’m sitting on a fence
Like the girls on the bridge
Wondering how time flew by
I’m old and I’m fat
And not so great to look at
And that’s a matter of fact.
Take me home somebody
Let me hold somebody
Even if just for the night
It will be all right.
Unlike the girls on the bridge
I have no sense of conviction
I really don’t know what I do.
In a jaded, faded way
Like the remains of yesterday
I sit on a fence and sway.
Take me in somebody
Let me win, somebody
Even if for the moment
Before it went.
The girls on the bridge
Have a purpose to serve
Someone needs their bodies’ orifices.
But I have no real talent
No temporary gallant
No purpose or predicament.
Take me out somebody
Release me from my body
And let my soul fly unhindered,
unwept.
I’m sitting on a fence
And it doesn’t make much sense
I’m not like the girls on the bridge at all.
At least they have perseverance
A studied indifference
And the will to survive the fall.
Take me off somebody
Turn me on somebody
Before I screw it all up for myself.
24july2004
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