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Thursday, November 23, 2017

SOUND AND SILENCE

by Gil Hoy




He was unwantedly
   relentless

in his impetuous prolix
pronouncements

Could bend even
  the most patient

sturdy ear to
  the breaking point

with his crooked
                       rivers of words

Did he really
    tweet demanding

thanks from UCLA
         basketball players?

Did he really
   tweet an ungrateful

     father's son
should've been left

       in a Chinese jail?


I wish instead

that he'd strode
    confidently into a garden

                  of roses

Winked on top of a dry
         wry smile

Opened his mouth, and said

    nothing at all—like a stone—


While inquisitive listening flies gathered
      in his

suddenly silent mouth

   While fluttering flocking pigeons
flitted

   on suddenly scarecrow arms.

While squirrels around the man’s
      stone cold feet

squirreled away
  just enough acorns

for a suddenly warmer winter

   and the felicitous sun
         rose and set every day 

After day

After day

 After day.


And the man never spoke again.


Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy's work has appeared most recently in Ariel Chart, The Penmen Review, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, TheNewVerse.News and Clark Street Review