It is not true

It is not true

What they say about silence

There is no honour in it

Not when it beats at the ears

With little in the way of rhythm

Or thought to engender a feeling

Of comfort

Or joy

The silence as loud as a jackhammer

As painful as a knitting needle

In the ear

Did you ever do that?

It is never advisable

Almost as bad as shoving a pea up your nose

Or an orange up the back passage

How does anybody manage to sit on one

In the first place?

I am not enamoured with the need

To be a proctologist

But someone has to do it.

Even on a quiet day

The clamour

For a pain-free existence

Is relentless

The drone of solitude

As the buzz of a fly

Beating at the window

Unable to find its way out

Is only matched by

The click of the freezer

As the ice settles

With a crack.

An ancient glacier has just

Fallen into the sea

In the Antarctic

The effects of global warming

Never far from the surface.

Lost in space,

Stuck in a vacuum

As loud as a library

At midnight.

When the turn of one page

Can break a heart

With the whisper of its closure

The hapless flutter

Of its letters

As they settle

Into a proper noun

There is a name for it

But the meaning is lost

In an echo

Of confirmation bias

As the names of a thousand

Old friends and

Lost souls

Rebound through

The canals of my inner ear

The scream of hushed tones

Creating havoc

With my peace of mind.