If words were halved, such as gentle
men for example and used less often
in such activities as; policy debates, domestic feuds, jobapplications
and innercriticattacks, would more time exist for silence
and to listening for it?

I found a few minutes earlier
filled with silence,
at that time my mind paused its chattering ways
and half of me was able to observe the other.
It is something that I seek to do more often
as the experience offers respite from the
persistant need to be constantly explanatorial.

This need often occurs in the form of an internal competition,
where two voices and sometimes more, vie one against the other,
with selfcertified gladiatorial certainty.
One voice might, for example, say such a thing as:
'it is not good enough to rest upon your laurels – you must continue
to be loquacious and insightful, speak up, be cleverer'.
(Note the oftenused expression of 'you must', this a favourite. Usually
followed by: 'you should, they should and he or she should'.)

Another voice will counter; 'let him be, let him be simple, if he wants
to stop for a minute let him'. This plaintiff voice however, will most
likely be overshadowed by another who will shout, calling me
to re-use  words from my history, demanding that I repeat and rehash
them until I've succeeded in doubling and redoubling their meaning
into a meaningless re re un re rehearsal of something that falls out
in the unresolved shape of complexity and disturbance.

The silence that I yearn for suggests to me
to continue the halving of words.
To play with them a while:
Thin king. Hat red. His story. Mind full. Am bit. Not ice.
And to continue to halve by half,
with the half that observes the halving half,
to find just a word to hold the silence?