(photo by RGaylor)
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
…
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
…
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Night of bad dreams.
Not nightmares, for it stated as a sweet dream
Fantasy begging to be made real
Searching, hoping for happy circumstance
but there was no answer in the long night
Drove endless miles in the desert
alone in silence
As the hours wore on
One refrain playing louder and louder
Give up what I crave
I can’t have it all
Awoke to the blue dawn
Cold
Cruel mesquite with it’s angry thorns
Swaying like grass
Where was an oak when I needed it most?
It was then that I realized
silence was my salvation