Silence

from Resurrection by swampmessiah

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lyrics

A garage door mechanically opened, whir and clank, bindings of rust—a car is driven in, a warm motor and gravel under the tires.
Dogs open up, pure vocal cords; then humans open the inferior howl—a swelling barrage of yap and yell.
A jet and a jet and a jet—the recurrent scream of deceleration.
The hormonal extreme of cats facing off; the love and boredom and mischief of youth, the baiting and taunting, the collapse into conformity, the laughter and hush; drunks attempting invisibility one stumble at a time; car doors, kitchen doors, front doors, bedroom doors slamming; a wind twisting the cottonwood until it touches stucco walls; raccoons and dogs discovering the tip and roll of garbage cans which the wind takes over; rabbit shrieks from the mouths of fox or owl; sirens of life or death and other wails whose meaning we may never know.
This is a stillness we call night.
a a a
Where are the dreams, the deranged reliving of yesterday, the soothing vortex of nightmares, the illogic of neurons left untended?
Not a single image.
Not a single sound.
Or the dreary fantasies, the plots, the repetitions and minute variations of theme that build a backbeat to lullabies?
Not a single word.
Not a single story.
What of the confusion of voices, the reiterated ideas and idiocies, the labyrinthine mob defying I and ego, the infinite monologues of undoing?
Not a single vowel.
Not a single whisper.
Memories? All the stories and impressions and details that conform into me? What happened to that white noise of suffering? Or the drop of water falling into a pool, resembling joy? Or the slow abrasive drag of now, repeated and recalled, the temporal feedback of now, repeated and recalled?
Not a single face.
Not a single name.
Where is that something, that nothing, that anything—that thing—called me?
Not a single syllable.
Not a single sensation.
This is the stillness we call night.

credits

from Resurrection, released September 28, 2022

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about

swampmessiah Saint Paul, Minnesota

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1957. I've been drawing all my life and painting since about 1975; I started writing poetry and rants in, maybe, 1976; since 1996 I've been recording those poems and rants, usually with a "musical" backing.
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My partner and I have two children. I have a day job that is in no way artistic. ... more