(Please) Send Word

I sit on the porch, a mute satin wind sliding across the sky with a sinister discretion.
My ears are on stalks, grasping for distant harmonious voices,
In vain so far, but I can feel vanguard vibrations, 
Echoing forth in reconnaissance, excited, ill disciplined.

I can hear neither sound...

...nor silence

Words wander across plains of shattered glass in my imagination, hopeful,
Perhaps she whispered into a vacuum,
Or sent hushed messengers, 
Struck dumb by the vast journey.

I can hear neither sound...


...nor silence

Maybe crackling on the line... ?
Or a voice sad stricken, out of breath.
A faint hum, or a dull rumbling that could be external or internal,
The cogs of ill reason grinding?

Whenever you talk to people about horror movies, somebody is almost guaranteed to explain that "the ones where they don't show the monster are the scariest", and it's often true that our imagination is much better at building something that we are afraid of than any screenwriter. And really it makes perfect sense, as we have all the ammunition in our minds to tailor a creature perfectly geared towards our own unique fears and insecurities. 

 But it's not just fear. Helen of Troy was described as having "a face that launched a thousand ships", and that vague description is probably responsible for igniting perfect imaginary faces, all unique, in the minds of generations. A photograph of Helen would disappoint all but a few.

And so in a roundabout way, I'm trying to explain that this poem is about the imagination, and how the silence between two people is never really silent at all. When your anxiously waiting  to hear from somebody, their voice, inside your minds says the cruelest or the kindest things. 


©2010 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco