Silence
Behind the closing door
under the shuttering eye
below the root cellar floor
below the root cellar floor
at my back under night scarred sky
hooked at the end of the roar
after the last feelings die
beyond where the last breath blows--
it lives. It swallows. It owns.
after the last feelings die
beyond where the last breath blows--
it lives. It swallows. It owns.
~October 2012
Posted for Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub
Stu McPherson is hosting tonight, and asks us to write about a phobia or fear. I love quiet, but I am creeped by absolute silence.
Optional Musical Accompaniment
(instrumental)
Image: The Isle of the Dead, by Arnold Böcklin
Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org
your silence is eerily loud...you give it menace as well....giving us just enough to know that at the end of all it still lives...and waits and...
ReplyDeletenice use of language as well to set the tone....hooks, scarred....
Ooooh yessss. Silence is very scary at times. So effectively communicated in just a few words. The sound of silence... I'm right there with you. Good to be back here reading you.
ReplyDeleteOui, I like the entire package. You and Stu were cooking from from the same kitchen. Silence is a powerful thing. I liked ur voice in this, very clear. The last nline; three short sentences. Very powerful.
ReplyDeletethis is immense...a fear of silence...silence is all consuming, can mean so many things...is a catalyst of fears...and this poem is so universal, so easy to relate to...but the fact that silence always lives on...shows also lifes continuance, in all its terrifying glory
ReplyDeleteIt all creeps along so perfectly, leading us to that last line, so final.
ReplyDeleteToo much silence is fearful, but drop in a dash of sound, like a board creaking, or a breath~and look out! That's why i like white noise. To hide the silence and bumps in the night.
That's really creepy! Love it!
ReplyDeleteGiving a voice to silence is not an easy task ... you have ~ I enjoyed this. The piano adds so much to the feeling ... like you, I don't enjoy silence for long periods of time ... love soft music as a backdrop to whatever I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteThat last line is stunning and creepy ~ I do like silence but not for long stretches ~
ReplyDeleteAnd I like that music link ~ thanks ~
I usually crave silence but gosh not sure about that now! Eerie!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful sounds here to scare away the silence. All that assonance and rhyme works very well, as they come across as a kind of reverberation. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure what to do. It feels like all I write has some kind of fear at its root!
Root cellar floor is a wonderful image/metaphor by the way, like the rag and bone shop of the heart in its own way, only below ladder's reach. (And, of course, one can imagine all those hidden bones! and rags! ) k.
Know the feeling--I had another poem picked about loss and death and things but yeesh. Sometimes I feel that's all I post. Glad you liked the root cellar--I'm afraid of basements, too. ;-) Thanks for reading, as always, both the lines and in between them, k.
DeleteI love "under the shuttering eye".....very creepy indeed.........last line made me catch my breath.
ReplyDeleteO I like this... hated the silence too as a kid
ReplyDelete..."it swallows,, it owns"...powerful..makes me wonder how much of our fears can be overcome??? Love, love the version of Simon & Garfunkel you shared..thank you!
ReplyDeleteSilence can be so loud...I am alone so often and just the noise of the air conditioner is comforting. Yes, silence swallows..it owns.
ReplyDeletethere is a kind of silence that scares me as well..you just feel there's something wrong...ugh...gives me shivers by just reading it...glad that i have some nice background noises over here at the moment..
ReplyDeleteI love your final couplet. How haunting.
ReplyDeletevery haunting, very eerie...m scared of silence too.
ReplyDeletewow! this gave me shivers! even with something frightening, i love the way you use words, Joy ~ "under night scarred sky" ~ gorgeous! and love Nina Simone ~ both singing and playing piano! this is an amazing arrangement.
ReplyDelete♥
definitely goosebumpy....I love silence of any variety, but your verse made me rethink :)
ReplyDeleteHOOKED at the end of the roar <-- fantastic!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Sabio, that line is terrific. And what is it about that cellar floor, the dark behind my back, and the closing door? Shudders. You got it.
ReplyDeleteLove Nina.
whoa. i do NOT want to see it.
ReplyDeletescary stuff! great take on the prompt!
Reasonable fear to me as finding silence is unusual. The sparse lines help to convey the feelingss provoked
ReplyDeleteYou're scaring me, too. I don't even like to think about it.
ReplyDeleteSilence is the punctuation of the universe, the pause before the tree falls, before the board breaks, and you are so very astute to notice, and to be charged with alacrity, to be very afraid of the breath taken by chaos.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean! There are times when absolute silence can be unnerving! Like right after you say something (totally innocent and harmless) to your wife and she just stands there glaring at ya! DANG!
ReplyDeleteNow that is pure fear there, Charles. But sometimes better than what happens next. ;_)
DeleteSilence can be deafening so it seems. But real silence can be unsettling too. Well crafted Joy!
ReplyDeleteHank
I'd like to repeat what manicddaily stated so well: "Beautiful sounds here to scare away the silence. All that assonance and rhyme works very well, as they come across as a kind of reverberation. Well done."
ReplyDeleteI didn't care for the musical accompaniment but maybe that's because silence is my old friend.
This is a beautiful poem, despite the all-consuming nature of the subject - interesting phobia. It seems to me our world is far too noisy. I love silence, but how often do we get to hear absolute silence? It's rare, I'd say. I've only experienced it once, and then it scared the shit out of me. My partner and I were camping in a National Forest, not a campground, no lights and no one else around. We pitched our tent and night fell. No moon. No wind. No animals. No insects. Absolute darkness. And then we heard something. We strained and tried to figure out what it was, getting more scared by the second. And then we realized - it was the sound of our hearts beating.
ReplyDeleteSense deprivation, like the grave, does indeed swallow us as if it were alive. It's heartbeat, the throbbing of my own heart in my ears--who can tell the difference?
ReplyDeletePS: Nina standing at the piano as she plays is a little creepy too, perfect Halloween.
DeleteMy grandmother put all her canning down in the cellar. How horrified I was if told to go fetch the spaghetti sauce, the plums, the apple sauce. The trick was not to show my fear of the dungeon. I often achieved this, but not without long crying sessions under the piano.