MISSION STATEMENT

SILENT VOICES SPEAK started out as Silent Voices: A Writer’s Workshop, as the first group at the drop-in center at the Broadway location of Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, whose purpose is to empower it’s attendees to form and attend their own groups.

We have branched out as an independent entity. We are silent no more. We say yes to the creative possibilities of life & art...

The mission of SILENT VOICES SPEAK is to give a voice to people who are disenfranchised. Many of the participants in SILENT VOICES SPEAK are also visual and/or performing artists.

Membership is open to all.
Send submissions to lizhipwell@gmail.com.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

PONZI SCHEME ECSTASY by Jason Townsend

I just love you and your disheveled hair
You wear it that way cuz you just don't care
You don't live by the rules
And you think society behaves
Without a clue
You think for yourself
You Wiley fox
You play the game,
You know it well
And you live your life outside the box
You refuse to conform
It's totally you
As you rise above the norm
We're 2 of a kind
And we will live our dream
Life is about freedom
We'll bamboozle them like a Ponzi scheme.
-Jason Townsend

CONTENT TO BE… by Elizabeth Hipwell


Content to be at odds
With the straight and narrow lines of expectation
Travelling the rocky path,
Stubbing my toes along the way
Facing a waiting and hail-ridden maelstrom
Turning inside through the narrow
Claustrophobia of my harsh and endless
Self-absorbed pain
Holding tight to the apron strings
Of my fragile psyche
As I whirl like a Dervish
Chanting a prayer to the crazy comfort of the pain
That is so near and dear
It cradles and caresses my wounds with relish
Licking up the flow of hatred that resides in me
The vicious circular of doubt and hate
One day is dissipated
By a calm that settles and separates
Making the meditation of misery
Split into a vapor of consequence
To flow every which way and no more
What is left is pure and stronger for having been worn
Ready for the simplicity of peace
My recovery
Acceptance
Unhindered
Free
by Elizabeth Hipwell