Smitten with Silence, and Blinded by Choice

Just when you think that it's safe to get back in the gene pool,
someone will grab you and stab you and help you recall
what made you want to be all by yourself in the first place -
what made you make out that you needed no one at all.
Running from Deidre By-Day-And-Delores-By-Twilight,
you meet one madder than you at the top of your voice:
someone bi-coastal, bifocal, and by God, the reason
you became smitten with silence and blinded by choice.


Some girls will sleep on a pile of rags in the closet
rather than purchase the wrong fitted sheets for the bed.
It was just fine till you said so, and now she’s indignant:
she brands the mark of the beast to your sensitive head.
Just as you make yourself think she’s the one you’re expecting,
she ends up being the one you had hoped to avoid.
She adds your roses and rhymes to her personal compost -
You see she’s smitten with silence, and blinded by choice.


Go on believing that you’re a superior vessel.
Go on behaving as if there is nothing but time.
Cling to the string that’s attached to your free-floating ego.
Nestle in nests made of nettles, and sleep through your prime.
Sirens will cackle, and languor will litter the runways.
Chaos will primp as she yodels her oaths in the void.
Bitterness settles, and better you don’t even bother –
just say you’re smitten with silence, and blinded by choice.