Keep Your Silence (Someplace Else)

Revised version of an older poem. If you have trouble seeing part of the poem, I suggest just highlighting it. Part of the lighter text is a way of distinguishing the different parts of the poem.

Keep-your-steady-silence

And-I-will listen

To-the-echo-of-nothingness

Carrying the tallest mountains on my back

Crowned alone

Unnoticed by the crowd

The static of their televisions

The static of their lives

The static in their hearts

I have no music to give you

Keep your steady silence

I will stumble over the gravestones of {song/memories}

 

 

And listen

 

 

[To the faded {concrete/brushstroke/flowers} as they make their way home]

Unspoken to by the rafters of the waves of the stage

Playing my part

In the static of my words

In the static of my steps

In the fragments of my heart

You can mark my words; and listen

To the sound of a victory no one will celebrate

To the fanfare of my silence

I have no music to give you

Just my words

My touch

{My/the} unspoken {breath/wind} upon your back

Keep your steady silence

I have my own

 

 

 

Sit still with me among the stillness

People are digging for gems to fit their hearts with

In the {ground/foundation}

I do not need the glow of life

I have the shadows to hold me

The shadows of what was once mine

Those people of the dusk, smiling upon me

I keep their steady silence

I will listen

I {carry/hear} their

{Still/beating} hearts

Their steady breath

Faces unkept

And the memory of faded polaroid pictures

It is all I need

 

 

 

Empty doesn’t always feel cold

The sun flows through my veins

The memories are rays of light in the darkness

I am not alone

I have no crown

There was no king

But just the sound

Of the world passing by at a speed that leaves me

Weightless, and gone

Outdated trash that couldn’t be a gear in the future

But I will have no part in what has left them behind

I tell them, with sweet maple sap dry on my lips

Keep your steady silence

I’m still listening

You who heard me once

As we used to be

I too; will {crawl/find} my way home {someday/somewhere}

In a dream, maybe

 

 

And my silence

It is my gift to you

What once was

Is sleeping now

Try not to wake it

 

 

 

I'm sorry

 

 

 

I will not hang my head {in/a}shame[d], alone

+[Unloved, (unspoken-to)-({forgotten/lost/)and} unaccounted for]+

+[As if this earth had never walked on you]+

+[Or you’d never walked this earth]+

+[Untouched by the golden hourglass; watching existence {wither/dissolve}]+

+[{Eternity/into} a single second]+

+[Blinking of a neon eye]+

+[Unexplored, unaccompanied, unaccepted, unknown]+

=Pissed on, beaten down, exfoliated, naked,=

=[(Divulging, demented, dominating will, dismissing, distinct, diabolical, debilitation)]=

=({Battered/broken}) gone, nobody, no one,=

=({Crushed/discombobulated,}) ({desolate/desperate})=

=({Delirious/disgusting}) ({disconnecting/diseased})=

=({Dwarfed/distorted}, disturbed, distant, detested, dim) lonely, spaghettified, {nothing/silent}=

={Smiling/spent} from the quicksand beneath=

=The (sediment, surface, schism,) skin=

=I am I am I am I am=

=I am=

=Just {as/like} you were=

=Still here=

I still keep

Your steady silence

+[(Your story carries on)]+

+[(Like a holy man pushing redemption)]+

 

[Within my {sanitary/padded} cell]

[Sitting in the sound of nothing]

[No one hearing no one]

[Nothing becoming something]

[{Until/(metamorphosis)}]

[Bathing in the glow of mediocracy; the crystal of shadow]

[The static of empty]

[Meaningless and absurd]

[Like angel feathers, wilting]

[Plucked wings]

[Strung together by God and the Devil’s chord]

+[(There was music,-once)]+

There-was-music,-once

+[({This/an} instrument of surrender)]+

 

[Rotting] somewhere, [decadent;]

In the [jigsaw] bombshell

[The eroding stables, the long dead horses]

[The worn out deadbeat]

Of my [{rusted/tin}] heart

[(In effigy)]

[(In simplicity)]

[You will {live/carry} on {with/in} me forever]

[(Until) there’s nothing left to die]

[Only memory]

[(Or perhaps)]

[(What {hasn’t/cannot/will-not} {been/be} remembered)]

+[(What hasn’t been, and will never come)]+

+[(To be)]+

[In the first place]

+[(Life goes on regardless)]+

+[(It has no mercy, no kindliness, no patience)]+

+[(To spare)]+

+[(For dead and dying leaves)]+

+[(Shrivelling up)]+

+[(On the {concrete/sidewalk})]+

+[(You are long gone)]+

+[({But/and} I’m still here)]+

+[(Collecting these {(derelict)/broken} mementos)]+

=+[(The ever fleeting and dying past, dividing, disappearing)]+=

+[{In(to)/like} the {folded/fading} {arms[&]/eyes} of a

(Creased) {(Flags)/photograph/(billboard)}]+

I (thought I) loved you, once

Time stood ever still, and then waiting, pacing (back, forth), and finally, walking forward (again)

[I(t)-couldn’t-wait-for-you]-{but/life} goes on regardless ({through/open} windows, rising tides)

Soon, even(tually) I will not-[even] remember the sound of your voice

Between the autumn leaves

The shape of your name in my mouth has dried into soot

The church bells in the distance, {sway/cluttering}

I was there (before, ignorantly-I-was-=there=)

Now I’m here; watching the world end for the first time

How tragically beautiful death is,

Bringing new life {up/from} the {(desert)/dirt/depths} of one’s (monstrous/desolate) heart

[(Its horrible way of recognizing the absolute {transition[&]/trauma})]

[({Of/translating}-(what-it-is)]

[Something into nothing)] [(I-do-not-mean-to-denounce-you-so-cruelly-god-willing,-old-friend)]

Where is home?

Will you not forgive {me[my]/brother}?

(For what {I’ve/I-haven’t} {done/said}-[to-you]?

Is it because I left you behind (for myself)

And found my own reasons to live?

Is it because I ({still/truly})

{Don’t-know/never-learned}

[Or deserve(d) to(know)]

+[{Wonder/understand/transcend/make-believe}]+

{How-(or)/what-it-means} to {die[or-to]/love}?

Or [that I] couldn’t die with you?

Is this all there is? [Is there anything else {here/but}]

[({Madness/death/pretense/battlefields/loathsomeness/woe-(and)/false-destinies})?]

[Crystalized {ink/nectar} dissolving in a single petal; with or without blooming peeled, left bare]

{Memories/lovelessness/decay}

And dead {men/flowers}? ({all-is/is-all} as it {will/has} {be/been} {aimless/pointless})

{Still/slowly} {dying/shrivelling/crying-out}? (As if it meant anything at all-laid-to-infinite-rest)

[{Saving/blooming/(silent)} no one?-{and/here}{nothing/gone}all-in-a-single-final-{step/word}]

You are not alone

I-am-still-here

Forever, {always,/listening}forever;-if-you-want-me-to-be

I-will-protect-you-from-the-[noisy-cacaphony-of-this-world];-I-still-keep-your-steady-silence,-

Somewhere-in-{the/this/our}-bombshell-of-{my/a/this}-heart

Author's Note

Most of my poems can be differing lengths depending on the time you want to spend reading them. You can avoid reading anything brackets, or read it all. If you want an in-between, you can read only the ( ) brackets, or ( ) and [ ], or ( ) [ ] and { }, or all these mentioned brackets including < >, or these brackets all the way up to >( )<, and finally, up to - - or -< ->. There are other symbols I use, like “=” or “+” as well, or even other symbols, these are for parts of the poem that are least important, and may be skipped more easily. It must be in this order though if you wish to read some of the brackets. Obviously the more brackets you read, the longer my poems will be. The purpose of this is simply to allow leniency in how long or short you want the read to be. The lines in grey are particularly optional. This is not a way to ruin art in order to string in more readers, nor am I doubting a reader's capabilities to understand, or even how much they're willing to read. It is much more something where I simply do not know whether I consider these extra words be the core, and see them in a sense of not entirely understanding whether I consider them "canon", as they often change the flow of the piece, for better or worse, when or when not they are included. In a way, making it a completely different poem, as is their intention in a way, to add more, and to sculpt words differently. Think of these added brackets and words as the fat of the piece, rather than the bones.

Read in the order you please.

I should also mention my newer poems use slashes "/" and brackets around those slashes { / }

This basically means that you can either read that line with the words on the left of the slash only, the words on the right of the slash only, or, rarely, a combination, or all three. It's a sitational thing, that can bring freshness to a poem you've read before, and gives me the chance to have multiple ways of writing a poem instead of just 1.