by Richard James Allen.
Something has been said.
Something beyond
all the other noise
that passes from our lips.
Something important.
So important,
we don’t know
how to respond.
So, there’s a pause,
because pauses are
the safest course of action
when you aren’t clear.
Especially when what happens next
could change the course of everything.
And nobody actually wants that.
So, we pause,
and look away, into the middle distance,
as if there is some shiny object shimmering there.
Until gradually, gradually, ever-so-gradually,
half-dissolving, the baleful moment
slips away, is forgotten,
or at least superseded.
Diluted by wave upon wave
of other, less hazardous, moments.
Moments imbued with less
of that most perilous substance,
– possibility –
moments that follow,
unthinking or with too many thoughts,
one upon the other
without a pause.