Silenced What is never spoken of and pushed down becomes mold crawling over hearts. Strangling our voices, it scuttles through corridors, tunneling, warping each day. My body . . . this swollen thing carried by legs too thin and crippled to uphold it. Pushed down, tightly clamped in now full of pain, gasping for each breath. Smothered, silenced. street corners enveloped in exhaust fumes slate-like formations wait for light to change her carbon dress his face of ashes crushed within this granite body we eat grey food pulling empty air through narrow passageway to ink stain train smudged along blurred landscape of city inside myself searching a designer one clear line of perspective which distinguishes buildings from streets & points to where the synthetic sky ends Sick sick sick of my silence the universe is a labyrinthine in my ear ear ear. I am deaf from it there is no sure melody in these crazy strains. Deaf deaf deaf dumb blinded loosening mind for just one moment to a maze of human dilemma absurd. Gone gone gone everything is senselessly gone running thru rooms marked no exit crying out in no voice. Dance dance dance on the barbed wire of time feet raw raw raw bleeding blood blood blood. Again This grey day unrolls before us. I want to scream out against flat skies, tear up coarse air. I am put through my paces with long lists of minutiae. Acrid weariness crawls up spine. My eyelids droop shut. Today marches forward. . .another tin soldier knocking yesterday aside. Each night coming faster, faster. Winds blowing stronger, stronger. Cats howl in cold circles as ragged leaves cling to boughs. Raindrops fall like black ink under small pools of street lights. Darkness gathers close. . . my shadow, that long black silhouette slanting down follows me into the long night.
***
Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in many literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Poet Warriors, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Review Journals, and numerous Spectrum Publications have accepted her work. Her latest title, The Muse In Miniature, is available on Amazon and Cyberwit.net. She has four Best of the Net nominations. This is her first feature on The Fictional Café.
