The Art Of Silence

Oswald LeWinter

For Hannah Arendt

The art of silence is the practice
that victims must discard, in response
to the storm signals of the soul-
blue remembrances that plague our days.

Always the same fragile pictures-white elephants
in the porcelain factory of submerged time-
that smash peace and quiet, purchased
with cunning patience, into shards.

How we defeat ourselves when we choke back
lye-caustic syllables from the tongue,
swallow them, or lay them at the feet
of deceivers, wrapped in cotton sugar.

Next we claim there are worse things than a lie,
referring to the tiny razor blades
we use to shred the final honesty of our lives
until no snippet of the truth remains

to fill the simple frame where we seek ourselves
ceaselessly, but find not even a pale negative,
yet never cease to listen for the long buried voice
that’s finally, since none could hear it, grown mute.