There are nights

There are nights

When the air is so thick

With words unsaid

I could cut them into small pieces

With a knife

Feed on their unease

Chew on them

Taste their essence

Savour every single one

Trying to make sense

Of the meaning of sensation

As they trickle down

Hearing them whisper

In surprise

Trying to reform

Into something

Understood to be as useful

As well-meaning.

Even the knife

Has an edge to it

Sharper than a razor

Slicing through silver tongues

Cutting words short

The air whipped into a frenzy

Past and present participles

Swirling in and out of existence

A single bare bulb swings

As pendulums do.

I am crushed by the memory

Of dead things

History and artefacts

The litter of past lives

The glitter of remembrance

In every dusty flicker.

As my eyes grow tired

Of radiance

Turning blindly

Into a chaos of silence

A world of abstraction

Absorbed by the process

Of thinking

Filling in the blanks

With what was left over

And labelled, immaterial

What did I ever know?