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DanielBenoit
09-22-2009, 12:33 AM
Here's an old old one that some of you may have already seen on my blog. Either way, I'm posting it :D

Sleep

Silently, so softly
Is the noise and violence of sleep
Within it is ourselves, trapped
Overtaken by its spell, its
High singing, shall sleep not say
It is high time, time has come to stop
It has slowed and numbed its ticking
The narcotics of sleep being its cause

As if waking up from a weary dream
Forgetting the ability to remember
Overcome by a feverish high
So rests the sleeper in silence and persistence

But silence and persistence do not always allow stillness to follow, especially in sleep
For many eternal battles are fought silently
With signs of bloody struggle splattered on the warrior’s sword,
Not a sound of a scream
Nor the drop of a needle
Is heard, drowned out by silence

But it only takes the breaking of the looking glass
From silence, echoing its wave across mountains
Chanting its name, with aggression and coercion
With falsity and illusion, deception and delirium
As if in a trance, flailing, forgetting and flailing, forgetting
The hypnotic night, speeding without limit
To its constant goal of slowing
Itself giving a false representation
Like the impression of a face glued to the surface of time,
Silence lasts and then is broken
By the smashing and breaking of glass,
Then, silencing silence

Slipping, as if into a deep sleep
Seeping, seeping says the stone as it
Fagles its way to the bottom
Of the ocean, deep within it’s never ending
Depth, depth is the distraction of man
From otherworldly things it descends
Descending, drowning in a never ending loop

The hand of death, puts its palm over the brain
Seeping, sapping all of the life out of it
Until death plays a trick
It begins to speak, speaking
Of such things, its grip tightens
No pressure, none at all
Something more dangerous; warmth
Death spreads out its arms and embraces
The body, then the mind, with warmth
For death is sleep and sleep is death and
The world is all but this, within it
Trapped

Sound delaying its triumph
Yet this is a misrepresentation
For sound does not hold its peace
It is the ear which has its defenses up
Silence draining, like water down a sink
But where does that water go?

Images into images, sight into sight
The piercing sound of silence
Has given my guitar a new melody
Shrieking, silently, its soft sound

Pendragon
09-22-2009, 05:37 AM
There are too many really wonderful images here to pick out a favorite. Suffice it to say that I think it a really wonderful poem.

PrinceMyshkin
09-22-2009, 08:04 AM
Breath-taking! Along with the razor-sharp images, there is a tension between the forward rush of the thoughts and a felt effort to restrain them, to hold them back!

I have a quibble with


It is the ear who has put its defenses up

Which surely would be better if it were "It is the ear which"?

and



The piercing sound of silence
Has given my guitar a new melody
Shrieking, silently, its soft sound

where the guitar feels like such an extraneous entry from a world that has hitherto been contained in sleep...

DanielBenoit
09-22-2009, 02:12 PM
Thanks Pendragon and PrinceMyshkin! I am truly touched to have praise coming from two poets such as yourselves :)



Which surely would be better if it were "It is the ear which"?


Lol. It's funny, I spend forever editing and perfecting all of my images and words, and yet I let a little grammatical error pass me by :lol:. Fixed!

NickAdams
09-22-2009, 06:47 PM
I must have spent a few minutes saying the first line aloud and taking my time with each syllable while extending the vowel of that wonderfully placed "so". A very melodic alliteration: "Si-lent-ly, sooo soft-ly".

"High singing, shall sleep not say
It is high time ..."
Wonderful!