Silence Poems | Poemist

Popular Silence Poems

The Country Of Marriage

by Wendell Berry

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said

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Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.

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Questions Of Travel

by Elizabeth Bishop

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
- For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,

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Hide And Seek

by Henry Van Dyke

All the trees are sleeping, all the winds are still,
All the flocks of fleecy clouds have wandered past the hill;
Through the noonday silence, down the woods of June,
Hark, a little hunter's voice comes running with a tune.
"Hide and seek!
"When I speak,
"You must answer me:
"Call again,
"Merry men,
"Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"

......

The Lesson

by Roger McGough

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
his voice was lost in the din

'The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget'

......

Recent Silence Poems

Turquoise

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

Turquoise slow, rippling
freehearted and tenacious;
Impassively sail
by the aural yellowlegs
Dolphinfish are gone sleekly.

I'm A Man Who Understands Silence

by Tonmoy Datta Mishu

I'm a man who understands silence.
Sitting in the bench of a park,
I see trees.
I see them live, live a full life-
Completely in silence.

The wind talks in silence.
The dark becomes darker in silence.
The human brain works in silence.
The time passes in silence.

......

The Unsent Message That Learned My Name

by Oscar Auliq-Ice

It was nothing,
that is the cruelty of it—
nothing that should have grown teeth
and learned how to bite from the inside.

A moment so ordinary
it would not have been remembered
if memory were a fair judge
and not a loyal conspirator.

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A Sonnet of 35: When Silence Spoke of You

by Ayatullah Nurjati

When silence spoke, it called thy tender name,
And in that hush, my heart began to bloom;
Thy shadow danced upon the candle’s flame,
And turned the lonesome night to sweet perfume.

The moon grew pale beneath thy subtle gaze,
As though it feared thy beauty’s quiet might;
I lost my self within that mystic maze,
Where soul meets soul beyond both dark and light.

......

Nusantara Silence

by Ayatullah Nurjati

We were born from the land of Nusantara, a womb of time that contains seas and mountains, where waves learn to prostrate themselves and rocks memorize the wind's prayers.

Our language grows from the roots of rain, from the rustling of rice and the history of boats; words are not shouts, but silent traces that lead home.

Silence is not mere silence; it is a clear spring in the chest, where the mind abandons noise and the soul learns to listen to the universe.

In that silence, we know ourselves without the mirror of arrogance, calling out the name of life with a voice that does not hurt.

The mountains teach us to stand tall without arrogance, the sea teaches us to be vast without swallowing; the two meet in the awareness that life is care.

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