Being a Soul

by BOB GALLO   Jul 7, 2020


I watched how my faith faded right in front of me.
So, I turned loquacious
assuming
these phantoms could ever really
listen.

My penchant of talking
was like the desolation of a drowning man
hanging onto the last gasp
clutching at the last thing,
even
a dream of something afloat,
but there was no one between those ears,
no air in those violent gulps
those fading gasps.

To them, I was not a crying heart,
I was just a knot of noise
in the textile of such tumultuous traffic:
nothing special,
nothing summing up to a person, to a soul.

Nothing ever made me feel more homeless,
more forsaken than when I was amongst them,
so I chose loneliness,
I chose night to listen to the silence.

It was in that space of muteness where
I heard all the lonely voices,
the very sound of our partaken alienation
where
no one is lonely any longer .

We all share the night.
sky
is our collective solitude.

    report violation
2


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Latest Comments

  • 4 years ago

    by Poet on the Piano

    One of my favorites from you. Your wording here is spot-on. I also learned a new word: loquacious. So thank you for that!

    The images you gave effortlessly, the parallels, how we can resort to talking in order to preserve something, and it is perhaps one of our last attempts at clinging to something. To be heard and listened to and lifted up and held.

    "To them, I was not a crying heart,
    I was just a knot of noise
    in the textile of such tumultuous traffic:
    nothing special,
    nothing summing up to a person, to a soul."

    - I FELT this. It hurt my heart, because how often do we look at others as just background noise, instead of seeing and trying to understand their pain, the reasons why and the vulnerability they are portraying.

    I love how you phrased the following stanza, choosing loneliness, because you felt more apart when you were with others. How true that can be, when we're surrounded by people who may brush us off and treat us like objects or distractions.

    The revelations in the last two stanzas is beautiful, and you worded it quite poignantly. Isn't it amazing that solitude CAN be collective? That there is some understanding and maybe even unity in our loneliness.

    Such a thought-provoking, consistently written piece! Thank you for sharing this.

    • 4 years ago

      by BOB GALLO

      Thanks for the heart warming words AM.

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