World 042821

The Look of Silence
By Kimberly Madura
Sometimes the look is hard, sometimes rough,
sometimes anxious, sometimes aloof, sometimes
cold, and sometimes polished. Always controlled.
All to be seen in a certain way, to throw a certain
light. It is the way she hides things. Things like
shame, guilt, horror, messiness. Things she doesn’t
want you to see. Because she knows how to hide
her pain (it has made her so strong) because she
thinks if you saw through and perceived her as
ugly, as damaged, as dirty, as less, that just maybe
she couldn’t bear that.
So now if you look too close, too long, too deep, if
you get too close, she may freeze, or run, hide, avoid,
throw up daggers, fight, lie. Because she knows that
the look you give her back could shatter her. Because
in your eyes, in your expressions, she will see in you
what she could not face in herself – her own feelings –
pain, sadness, horror, outrage, grief, sympathy,
empathy, understanding, acceptance, compassion,
and worst of all LOVE.
Because she knows in the looking, in the seeing, in the
listening, in the silence lies the only key that will unlock
the secret. And the last secret is that she desperately
wants out.
Haiku
By Wayne F. Burke
the treadmill is taking me
somewhere
I want to go to
Misty Mountain
wears a shroud--
the ridge line weeps
the applause of pigeons
rising from the lawn--
I did nothing to deserve
Do you, pen
take this pencil
to be
your longly-lived
life?
new day
By Wayne F. Burke
cloudy and overcast–
lush green grass,
looks good enough to eat:
nut-sized green buds on
trees, and green sweep of
the woods on
mountainsides under
chalk-white sky,
a blank slate
to write the story
of the day
upon.
sunset #5
By Wayne F. Burke
Pigeons lined-up on
a wire
below a flaming sun sinking
slow as cold molasses
down behind Pine Tree Ridge--
a passing seagull
noisily objects to
something, maybe
to the presence of the
crow on top the telephone pole
(cawing an unlisted number).
The sun takes its sweet time
reaching the ridge line;
the crow swoops and
disappears in shadow;
the yellow sun sets the
ridge on fire
and dusk comes on
mellow.
5 PM
By Wayne F. Burke
Friday afternoon, and
the crush of traffic through
downtown streets,
cars and buses, roar of
trucks Bang
Boom
the gurgle of a motorsuckle--
everyone headed home
or who knows where (I don’t)
I wish everyone would tone it down
but, fat chance
of that, I know;
a seagull overhead, and
white as ever, does not
seem to mind the noise
but I do.
sunset #6
By Wayne F. Burke
Gold horizon
7 PM sunset,
viewed from a curbstone of
the JIFFY MART parking lot,
cars rolling in, rolling out
a sudden chill
in the air
as last rays of the sun,
it’s bald head sunk within ridgeline pines,
reflects off the face of the
overhang above gasoline pumps–
another day of life
in the world
nears an end.
Concepts Kakuro
Best described as a number
crossword, the task in
Kakuro is to fill all of the
empty square, using numbers
1 to 9, so the sum of
each horizontal lock equals
the number to its left, and
the sum of each vertical
block equals the number
on its top. No number may
be used in the same block
more than once.
April 28, 2021 The WORLD page 23