War of Silences and Other Poems

WAR OF SILENCES

I.

It took all night, and blistered hands,

to carve out this foxhole. A muddy sunken sanctuary,

just deep enough to duck beneath

the surface of stillness.

Every version of me haunts along the periphery,

digging into positions,

fixing firing lines.

A nervous calm camps with us.

The morning sun swells against the horizon

as cold war thaws, then steams like a kettle.

The silence is nearly bursting,

like water cresting over the brim of a cup

almost running over.

II.

The quiet screams in waves like artillery,

scattering strongholds like they were sandcastles.

Then demons lurch out of trenches,

seething and thrashing,

emptying armories

as they asphyxiate on silence.

We go over the top to meet them.

This crowded solitude boils beneath

the splitting ringing of silence.

III.

The meek murmuring of birds,

the wind with condolent sighs,

reemerge to salve the silence.

The afternoon moon bows its head in reverence

over the smoking armistice.

A maimed peace blooms from between the bodies

of struck-down false selves.

The silent Sacred kneels to wash the wounded.

And I become myself.

OXYGEN

Like a whale does not wonder about water,

we breathe in beauty until we forget

that it suspends us.

It is so close that we do not perceive it—

as obvious as oxygen.

So we set out to search the world

for what has always filled our lungs.

He Asks Me If Fairies Are Real