A Poem

so thick, the quiet, so strong,
like fog, like a pungent smoke.
so loud, the quiet--
a buzzing nothingness
like they had become.

there were things in that quiet--
shadows, memories,
murmurs in dead tongues,
hollow images,
dead things.

they gnawed at him, those things,
while he was alone,
while he was not alone.
crying out for vengeance,
their Furies tore his skin

his tears, though copious, were of no use.
they were merely water,
no libations for the dead.
and he remembered his myths;
he knew how to get them to go away.