POETRY

Continental Silentia

Neat name for the machine

On which the lists were done:

Quietly ordered violence.

Feathers by the ton.

Great name for the device

On which the lists were made:

Pan-European silence,

A pop-gun fusillade,

A muted rat-tat-tat,

The excuse already ripe:

We knew nothing of all that.

All we did was type,

And corrections in those days

Had to be done with x’s.

You couldn’t just erase

And start again: wrong sexes,

Wrong spellings… it took ages.

Just to get it right

Meant black spots in the pages:

Blurs of a foggy night.

Unspoken and unsung,

Those names that didn’t matter.

Sonderbehandlung.

Just written, pitter-patter.

Continental Silentia

For all those in absentia

Respectable dementia

Sub rosa eloquentia

List, oh list

The rest is silence

Put to silence

Zum schweigen gebracht

Typewriter

Firelighter

Tap tap

-- Standpoint, September 2010