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An Escape to Graphite

Published: 29 January 2019

It seems that I've buried myself in a hymn
that wanted itself to end as soon as it started
to save itself the embarrassment of having been
sung by folk that cut their hair for no reason
and smile at the vapours between bar and window.

If silence were a virtue then it must have been vice
to open the doors to the prison of my thoughts
and let them escape in graphite and ink and pixels
and letters and staves and digital recordings and
soft whispers near the sink by the restrooms.

Soft whispers that may have been screaming
enquiries as to why hymns are played for a monster
that has done nothing extraordinarily good or bad
and simply existed in a little glass room, tapping
on her Apple and making merry in planning the
next capers that are meant to please us all.

I don't know either.

But every time I find myself alone and quiet,
I hear it. That hymn that has taken me through
the darkness of Christmas and the New Year.

And I was grateful.