Silence in  General   

Now it is time to say what you have to say.
The room is quiet.
The whirring fan has been unplugged,
and the girl who was tapping
a pencil on her desktop has been removed.

So tell us what is on your mind.
We want to hear the sound of your foliage,
the unraveling of your tool kit,
your songs of loneliness,
your songs of hurt.

The trains are motionless on the tracks,
the ships are at restn the harbor.
The dogs are cocking their heads
and the gods are peering down from their balloons.
The town is hushed,

and everyone here has a copy.
So tell us about your parents—
your father behind the steering wheel,
your cruel mother at the sink.
Let's hear about all the clouds you saw, all the trees.

Read the poem you brought with you tonight.
The ocean has stopped sloshing around,
and even Beethoven
is sitting up in his deathbed,
his cold hearing horn inserted in one ear.

By Billy Collins

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Other poems by Billy Collins:

• Candle Hat
• Child Development
• Consolation
• Dear Reader
• Dharma
• Directions
• Fishing On The Susquehanna In July
• Flames
• For Bartleby The Scrivener
• I Ask You
• I Go Back To The House For A Book
• Introduction To Poetry
• Invention
• Japan
• Madmen
• Man Listening To Disc
• Marginalia
• Neither Snow
• Nightclub
• Nostalgia
• On Turning Ten
• Picnic, Lightning
• Pinup
• Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung
• Shoveling Snow With Buddha
• Silence
• Snow Day
• Study In Orange And White
• The Art Of Drowning
• The Best Cigarette
• The First Dream
• The Iron Bridge
• The Only Day In Existence
• Today
• Walking Across The Atlantic