Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Creature of Silence - Sean Ali

The Creature of Silence
I want you,
          As the night covered trees
          Thirst for the morning dew.
I crave your touch,
          Like sun-scorched skin
          Seeks cool water.
Banging my head,
          Against the invisible bars
          That keep me from you,
          Against this shell-shocked solidarity,
          A blind decree from the dumbstruck majority
I want you,
          Like the gaping beak
          Waiting to devour
          The mother bird’s wrangling worm,
          Like the green haze
          That follows the storm
I want you,
          Like my bones want reprieve
          From their restless solitude.

For the soul is a creature of silence
And the body a creature of noise
Quaking in ecstasied-eyed violence
Trampled under venom-soaked poise

Lift my voice to lighter days
          Where seashells clatter
                    In the rollicking waves

The abyss of Eros and the anguished joys
From the astonished faces of lovers’ decoys
Children of laughter,
          Children of tears,
          All of them destined
          For numbers and gears.


Lift my voice to lighter days
          Where the seashells clatter
                    In the rollicking waves

Dreams of night-stained fingernails
Clasping at the bloodred dawn
Dreams of the sunlight vagrant sails
What once was here,
          now is gone.
Lift my heart to lighter days
          where the tide recedes
                    with the rollicking waves

The daytime of your dreaming
is lost forever more
in the frolicking caves
For the soul is a creature of silence
And the body a creature of noise
Into his chest,
the spear was thrust
Out poured blood and water
          and mortality’s dust
Oh, but that the world could contain
          one act of forgiveness
Oh, but that the sea were large enough
             to catch a falling tear
Midnight has come,
              and the light comprehendeth not
Solitude, misery, wretchedness,
               and the banalities of the human lot
For we’ve fallen down stairs,
Strung up our wrists,
Breathed in the nightmares,
While clenching our fists.
Like the contradiction
             between the human heart
              and the smiling face
Or the torrid friction
             between the rumbling upstart
              and a life of disgrace
Behold! the chasm of the human soul
that knows malice without ends,
The yawning abyss of man’s inner being
Making murderers of friends
Oh, but that the world could contain
            one act of forgiveness
Oh, but that the sea were large enough
            to catch a falling tear
For I’ve only one to shed


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