Poem: 4’33” and Variations

He was tremendous to me, once.
Told me everything I wanted to hear.
Into the long night, it was
Where everything was analyzable.
We scrutinized every silence and
Lorded over that time, that space.
We seemed unafraid to speak our
Minds: Restless, young, brash.

There were silences when we
Watched each other breathe,
Wanted to stay awake just so.
We talked about dreams
But forgot about the nightmares.
Flourished in play but negated
Grief and minute, intricate shames.
Eyes closed first, then the ears, and
Neglect became the most
Unforgiving silence of all.

There are many such silences.
A singular in a multitude.
A drop cascaded into a movement.
The streets creased unseasonally,
A stop-start jerk of arrested action.
There are some that hear not,
And twist the hearings.
There are blackouts.
There are lines that shouldn’t
Have been struck, erode the stories
Of the fallen and the meek
As noise.

In retaliation,
There are the silences of protests,
A bubbled time in a streetwise candle,
And of remembrance.

Then there are the silences
Of contemplation in a “temple” of the self.
Or: A behemoth in muffled lightning,
That roils with relentless challenges,
With drops of calm like oil in water,
Breathing deep against the tide of time.
There’s pressure, easing and honing in.
There’s scribbles, loose-leafs, coiled spines,
Which all get shuffled and satedly vandalized
On the way to create new memories.

[coda]

And then there’s you.
My newfound silence in newborn shyness,
In a staccato heartbeat of quiet hope.
A singular glance poised for harmony
Of endless discussions in crafted havens.
It runs full color arpeggios in my imagination,
Eliciting a gasp of paradigm shifts.
A question fluted on the lips, wondering,
If the meaning I make is meaningful to you.

      D.C. al Coda

[coda]

Sometimes (time and time again),
Allowing one’s truest self to Become
Is but the silent grace of listening.

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