The sonnet sequence, "My Human Disguise," of 600 ekphrastic poems, was begun February 2011 and completed January 15, 2022. It can be found beginning with the January 20, 2022 post and working backwards. Going forward are 20 poems called "Terzata," beginning on January 27, 2022. Thirty more Terzata can be found among the links on the right. A new series of dramatic monologues follows on the blog roll, followed by a series of formal poems, each based on a single word.
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Thursday, April 25, 2013
Silence (Odilon Redon)
#115
I cannot tell you what I know because I can't.
You hear only what you imagine I can say,
Which is everything: what is evanescent,
And why you hear, or what is already empty.
I'm impossible, the opposite of being,
As darkness is the false negative of seeing.
But, if you can seek me out, I am a music,
Composed and at rest, a tune without beat or notes
(The Sirens would have shrieked, blasting voices
Into cracked larynxes just to mimic),
A sonata unwhispered I unlearned by rote,
My own sweet refusal to make any choices.
Now be quiet, if only for a moment
Stay your life, if only for a moment