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CATACLYSMIC SILENCE
By Quentin Smith
The brick-room wall Smears The Space that dares
To separate us. The air Springs against itself –
Crushed slivers of invisible wheat. This is the moment
When the boiled Thought Is ready to explode
On glass turning To sawdust. Whiplash of tongue
Severs the silence, A sound Knifed out the harbors
Of a mouth, -- Now Stand on this Turning globe, You there
With the ragged black Clothes, standing there With sky
Pouring through your eyes, Skies of some
Foreign night. The day You told us Would swell around
The far corner Has come. Here the quietness
Reigns like a bell And the roof somehow Has fallen in.
Published in THE SHORE REVIEW, 1975. Written in 1973. |