Silence Poems | Poemist

Popular Silence Poems

Sun

by Michael Palmer

Write this. We have burned all their villages

Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them

Write this. We have adopted their customs and their manner of dress

Write this. A word may be shaped like a bed, a basket of tears or an X

In the notebook it says, It is the time of mutations, laughter at jokes,
secrets beyond the boundaries of speech

......

Lara

by George Gordon Byron

LARA.

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:

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Grief

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--
Most like a monumental statue set

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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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Horse

by Louise Gluck

What does the horse give you
That I cannot give you?

I watch you when you are alone,
When you ride into the field behind the dairy,
Your hands buried in the mare's
Dark mane.

Then I know what lies behind your silence:
Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still,

......

Recent Silence Poems

Towards the Core of Silence

by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Away from pesky leeches and from
Broken, sad walls,
I strive towards the centre.

Voices are hidden from fallen, spavined horses,
And echoes draped in robes of
Mutiny fly past.

The centre retains the pith of silence.
Heart-murmurs celebrate the only known

......

Silence

by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Silence faces the contours of a
somnolent east when winds from a
rising slope say their prayers in muffled
voices, through the raucous sounds of
rolling autumnal leaves, painted red and
orange by God’s apprentices here on this
fragile, rambunctious earth that pines away
when silence pulls its cloak up and yawns.

You!

by Michael R. Burch

These are poems about relationships, with lovers, family members, and a God (real or fictitious?)

You!
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

......

Sanctuary

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

I was a stylish, assertive travel agent, arranging getaways for busy people;
Like sudden getaways of jewel, shooting stars, on ebony nights of upheaval.

I planned calm, exotic, trip itineraries, for all tired of city hustle and bustle;
Like a dark red flower, blooming isolated, in peach sunshine of little trouble.

I also arranged for transportation and lodging, for exhausted, glad travelers;
As beauty birds fly north and south singing, ever ecstatic, joy ambassadors.

I began dreaming of a getaway myself, one of complete rest and relaxation.

......

A Drunks Sober Mind

by Johnathon B

People are noisy.
Sitting in the dark I can hear the highway from miles away.
The trucks screaming over the metal bridge that's there for the construction.
The cars on their ways to work.
Honking horns sometimes bullet the air.
I wonder if people ever realize how noisy they are?
I bet there's a guy in Brooklyn that's never truly heard quiet in his life.
Maybe that's why people make movies about nature and what it's like to be outside on adventures.
Or just truly outside, in nature.
Sometimes I think I've never truly heard quiet.

......