On Silence

Silence. 

It’s a weird thing isn’t. 

It halts things but also cuts through fog with the accuracy and grace of a sword fighter. 

How it seems to dance and entertain the idea of a fortress. 

How it then proceeds to tell everyone how to destroy it. 

How long it takes doesn’t matter.

For how it on dime may choose to smash a glass in an instant and say nothing 

to the person scrambling or help bury it in the grass. 

For it’s as fickle as an ancient god. 

One moment it offers food and safety 

only to find tricks, lies and poison. 

From the authority, grandiosity and respect of a judge’s bellowing shout. 

To cut through unnecessary noise. 

To a cowardly thief who refuses to confront 

any challenges presented instead slipping away. 

For how it offer calm and panic

in two different hands.  

Here ends my ode to one and to all! 

For the strange little dancer that is silence.

Author's Note

I would like pointers on what you like about the piece and what you think could improved on it. Be as honest and constructive as possible.

Inspiration
I was inspired by a quest I was playing in video game in which a character with a law enforcement-like job speaks about how they always have to watch their back because of the amount of people who want them dead

Reviews

[JayG]

You seem to be making statements for statement sake.

• It’s a weird thing isn’t.

I have no idea of what this might mean. Silence is weird? Silence isn't weird? Neither make sense.

• It halts things but also cuts through fog with the accuracy and grace of a sword fighter.

1.Silence is the RESULT of things halting, a condition, not a thing.
2. You've not met all that many "sword fighters." Try your local SCA's events.

• How it seems to dance and entertain the idea of a fortress.

Silence, which is an absence of vibrations in the air dances? It thinks about military strongholds?

It appears that you're trying to be deep and "literary," but, in a way that brings to mind a verse of what's often called Bunthorn's Confession, but actually titled: If You're Anxious for to Shine, from the Gilbert & Sulliven operetta, Patience.

And every one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself
in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"

It's a fun show, and Michael Bsll sings a wonderful rendition here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu_Xk_Vl6fk

Poetry is so much more than the author seeming deep and obtuse. It's about more than impressing the reader, It's about the poet's superpower to move the reader emotionally, and with no more than the choice and placement of words cause someone they'll never meet to feel emotions of their choosing—reactions that the reader will thank them for.

Try this: Stephen Service wrote, The Cremation of Sam McGee well over 100 years ago. But it still has the power to get the reader tapping to the rhythm of the poem's beat, engrossed in the story, and smiling at the conclusion: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45081/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee

Dig into the skills of the poet with a book like Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook, a gem of a book that's filled with small surprises and unsuspected revelations. Trot over to Amazon to read the excerpt from Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled, to learn surprising things about the flow of language, and what makes metrical poetry what it is. I recommend that to all kinds of writers.

Sorry for the bad news, but you did ask. 🤣 And, a bit of digging into the skills of the profession makes the act of writing it a LOT more fun.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain