catapult magazine

Shut the Hell Up

by Alex Joyner

Shut the hell up.
Don’t lend your quick tongue to speak its sulphur.
Hush its rush to pervade
Don’t call a spade a spade
a crane a bird
the wind a breeze
when you full well know
            She breathes
                        in that gale,
                        that whisper brush
                                    across your sleeping face.

Shut the hell up.
Give it no more words.
Every syllable of Babel,
            each puff piece of pop,
            breathless news of every kind,
builds a house of sand
as dry as bone.

Shut the hell up
So the live ones can fade to the fore
            Things that fly and creep and crawl
            Those we now thought mute
                             companions or ornamental relics
Will have their voice and our regard.

But should you say such things can’t be
That angels do not dance on pins
           nor sawgrass blades
     much less in space
            that vibrates
            between me and Thee
Should you say the world is flat
            and unresponsive
                  to your unacknowledged pleas and thank you’s

Well you know what to do.