What price silence?

This was originally posted in alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo after a rather bruising visit from that ever fascinating flame giant  whom I once de-famed [it fell off actually but....]

In any case trying to talk reason was like pouring gasoline on a flame giant...

Which led to the following Poem which ended up as one of my entries in the A.C.C. anthology Volume 1

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

What price silence?

Sometimes
Silence is
the answer
best
unmade

Chrome reflects
light
not the shadow
worlds and words
of images on the page
there!
within the mind of the reader
truth and denial
lies and fantasies
truths and pains

Do you hear the words?
Moment to moment
trace to trace
circuits made
links broken
packets lost

large caliber lies
versus
high velocity truth
versus
perceptions as usual
versus
intertnetainment at any price
versus
the petty
versus
a fragmentation grenade made of silence

do you laugh
when your world is unmade?
should you cry?
plot the noise to signal ratio
as the future is
as much the past
or present

light staccato laughter
with as much value
and impact
as a horizontal retrace
across phosphor coated glass
85 hurts per second

we bleed
photons of our own darkness
calling it the darkness of others
a sprawl of pain as large as our own heart
                 as shallow as our need
This is how we create meaning.
               
do we betray our self or another?
do we accept the futility of hope?

To escape from the vacuous
choose meaning
choose pain
choose acceptance

cold logic dictates the truth table
quantum dots of nothing
bound forever
and not or nand nor
infallibly superimposed
logically interlocked
packet collision

Does the best always win?
Good?
Light?
Truth?

Listen to:
irrationally indexed entries
in a helical strand of nucleic acids
lies nature has told itself
future generations laugh an cry

nothing *is* forever
forever is nothing.
words
traced once across a phosphor page
now fade like chainsawed trees

my voice is stilled
I listen
soft breathing
a murmur
another
crying out
in their sleep

Had I not listened
I could not have heard.

Sometimes silence is the answer
hardest to obtain
but most precious all

Beware:

What price silence?