Describing a Silence

Posted on June 2, 2003 in Book of Days Poems

Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: Write about a silence.

Draw a circle

more of an ellipse

— except my problem with that is

when you put lines in the scheme

it screeches like a frightened rabbit

running rings to escape a cat.

Color it the palest of silvers

for the false hunger that puts

a cigarette or a pen or a wad of gum in your mouth

just so the teeth can clench

the tongue fondle

the jaws champ together and release.

Go out on a flat sea on a foggy day

when you can see no more than twenty yards.

Feel the occasional lurch of the stinky bottomed fishing boat

Hear the oblique call of a foghorn, direction uncertain.

Set yourself a place at a long yellow table

in a school dining hall between meals.

Stand in front of a jet engine.

Watch your hair be blown to a funny crest.

Draw an old-fashioned television screen

flat on the top and bottom,

rounded at either end

around each of these scenes.

Turn it off.

Instant on. Instant off.

Digital gray.

Indefinitely.

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Want to participate? First either get yourself a copy of A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves or read these guidelines. Then either check in to see what the prompt for the day is or read along in the book.

Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: Once when I was. . .