the earth itself
seems spent
rotating on its wobble
lethargically
a blanket of silence
smothers the land

except for a lone dog
angrily barking
somewhere in the distance
a figment
a fragment
my imagination
filling in the spaces
a savory sanity
at the brink of madness

the birds have not
sang a note
no rumbling engines
or circling planes
the lady that cannot
pick up her fucking feet
has not shuffled down
the causeway outside

i wonder if i dream
and in my dreams
the same silence that
plagues my waking has
infected deeper into
my quivering slab of
chemically enriched
insignificance

or has the world
succumb to malignancy
given in to sorrow
shut off the alarm
and passed peacefully
as i stared unblinking
through the long night
of perpetual silences

it will awaken
it always does
to the satisfaction
of no one whatsoever
a new day dawns
in centrifugal malaise