Silence Of The Books Poem by Jay Mandeville

printed books run a risk:
silent, while life shouts.
neglected, despised,
yet a quiet surprise,
when our efforts to read
seem to travel full speed,
rush toward that space
where we phrase our replies.

one book may move us
with a soundless soliloquy,
or noiselessly feign
an arch affability.

another rehearse
with venomous levity,
some rancorous, unresolved
ancestral heresy.

in still other lines
we keenly surmise
a stark human tragedy,
anguish undisguised.

books made of silence
may grow lucid withal:
Life, they explain, might
decipher somehow.

extract, as you read
like the pit from a cherry,
that secret lodged inside
each word pages carry.