The Silent Muse

A Poem by Swagato Saha

This concerns the silence of the feminine subject in film and literature - an artifact of male fantasy, it speaks only in aftermath, through gestures and gazes. "The woman does not exist." - J. Lacan

The lion's share of words once drawn,
Mannered in strings of sturdy prose,
So the rugged voices spent, adjourn-
And you open at the close.

If only to meet in meek accord,
By scant variants that language keeps;
And spectres of unsired words,
Discerned in the quiver of lips...

Else suffer, thee speechless specimen!
Their perverse probes as circling lights;
And murmurs of hysteria,
Be veiled in the grammar of eyes...

The lion's share of words were drawn,
The mannered forms but turn to waste,
While I muse on thy silent scorn,
And leaves of stray verses wait-