Silent Silhouette, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Silent silhouette, lurks in ink
On the page, your words I drink
Mastery of imagery on the brink
The alure of the abyss, death’s kiss

You did the deed, dead hand
Why? What was it about that finality
That tempted you like heroine
You spoke of it like a magic act

The last time, was your final,
The successful ones always are
You left me with no more words
Lurking in your ink, silent silhouette

Dead hand, oh what could have been
The volumes now forever unwritten
Lost to the dark possibilities
To never touch a page

Silent silhouette, you must know
I still occasionally scream backwards
In time, to call for you, to tell you
It was no call, it was a curtain call

Dead hand, you still possess my fingers
Everlasting, your memory lingers
The abyss cannot take from me
Though your flesh is no more

I still wonder about the milk set out
And the wet rags you studiously
Jammed in frames of window and door
And made the kitchen your expiration

As so careful as to not take your children
With you. Dead hand, so many decades
Later, silent silhouette, still lingering
Morbidly inspiring, forgive me

If I say to you sweet silent silhouette
Dead hand, that still possesses me
Please, oh please, please forgive me
If I say, I will not follow that call

I am that air you eat, bittersweet
Longing for my ink
To be immortal as well
Dead hand, silent silhouette

You’ve left a shadow burnt
On many a heart
That you will never meet
Dead hand, silent silhouette

We know your name
Dead hand, sweet silent silhouette
Silvia, Silvia, trust me Sylvia
You are still here, silent silhouette.
(end)

Another ode poem to Sylvia Plath.