Silence

Silence. Does not come easily anymore.
Every second is full of voices, or cars, or static.
The woman on the TV tells me of pain across the world
And I cannot hear my self think.
Erratic.
My brain is frantic for thoughts of truth, of meaning.
What is silence? I cannot find it anymore.
I do not understand my thoughts, they’re screaming.
For quiet. In my dreaming I beg for it.
In my life I am scarred by its sharpness.
Silence. Just a word.
In a place that never was.
By a tree that never had color.
In a dream that never made sense.
I sit, contemplating who I could be.
But even I cannot be silent; cannot shut myself off.
Neither awake nor asleep I am a warrior for violence,
A warrior for loud words and quiet shouting.
Turning down the volume, I still hear it ringing.
But silence eludes me. Sleep does not bring peace.
It is a quiet place to stop. Mediate the warring sides for quiet,
That will never be.

I find it immensely interesting that I was put off by your title. And for that very reason, I thought: I've GOT to have a look at this, since I had such a weird reaction to just the title. And I think I've figured out what annoyed me: poetry is music, it's sound, it's read aloud - it is the total opposite of silence. So, if you try to describe silence with words, you end up breaking the very thing you are describing. I guess a 'thank you' is in order, for enlightening me on that. Oh, and, I'd recommend a flashier title too.

I think it's fascinating how you bolded and italicised words. It adds such an interesting touch to the poem - I can't say I like it; I kind of haven't seen it enough to like it, and I think it ruined the subtlety of the poem a lot; but I can't say I don't like it, either, since it's a new technique, and I've got to commend you on being creative as well .

Silence. Does not come easily anymore.
Every second is full of voices, or cars, or static.

Again, the first word annoyed me. Simply because to convey the concept, you had to break the silence, which was a really bizarre effect. And the second line wasn't particularly inventive, either - more like a list of things that make noise. I do not understand the significance of bolding 'voices' when you could have just as easily put in a line break there and left the word on the edge of the line, so that we focussed on it a bit more before we moved on.

And I cannot hear my self think. Erratic.
My brain is frantic for thoughts of truth, of meaning.
What is silence? I cannot find it anymore.
I do not understand my thoughts, they’re screaming.

I much preferred the italics to the bolds, actually. The bolds just screamed too loud - I guess that was the intention, but I really think you do not need to resort to such obvious methods of getting one point across. The literal statements of 'what is silence...etc' didn't do much for me.

Silence, is just a word. In a place that never was.By a tree that never had color.

There should be no comma after 'silence.' And this part - it's really hard to comprehend on a quick read - 'in a place that never was' is in itself contradictory; and no one will understand what a 'tree that never was' means first-time round, either - transparent trees sound intelligent, but don't stand up to much thought.

In the ending lines, the bolds and italics were getting rather annoying. The repetition of sound ans silence was likewise irritating - think about rephrasing, or just not saying at all. In fact, I think a common motif running throughout the story would work HEAPS better than just a stream of consciuosness with little to tether it down and make it accessible.

I hope that has helped.

Venturepants! You have a fun name!

Anyway, I think I may have ADD or something... when I was reading your poem, I kept stopping and going. The effect that the bold and italicized text had on me was that I kept stopping in the middle of the line, confused. Then I would stop and wonder why you bolded or italicized it, look and see if there was any connection with the other bold or italicized words, and then wonder why again. And then I would realize that I needed to finish the poem.

The point is! There needs to be some sort of consistency when you do those artsy things, otherwise you end up detracting from your overall poem. And that's always bad! So yay for experimenting! But I think I like your poem much better without the gimmicks. It's really an interesting concept, anyway!

I really liked this. I knew what you were trying to do with the italics and bolding. I liked the style. It's different, it's daring, it's you. I can see where people can get confused or annoyed, but don't let it get to you. Just keep experimenting and finding your style. Finding your voice. Regardless I really loved it. The title does contradict itself. But I like to think you did this intentionally.