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.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

WITHOUT EMOTION By Kathy Powers

In the land of static dark and light,
only shadow moved. Reproaching whispers
unsuccessfully attempted to control shadows’ actions.

Infinite shadows followed light,
hid in dark, remained deaf and mute
to the prodding prompts. Anxiety,
the country’s name, existed in
circular paranoia. Only shadow dodging
purposed the population, endlessly 
running from undefined fear.
In fact, purpose had no purpose.

Until after millennia of shadow play:
sun introduced colors , colors begot growth,
growth welcomed choice, and
shadows textured the existence palette.

Then there was music, cacophony and language.
With so many varied entities, structures formed
to organize and repress behavioral expansion,
lest pandemonium arise and destroy the new tableau.
These structures resembled the whispers that
tried to influence before-shadows, 
with the same unproductive effect.


When a big bang erupted, the world of dark,
light and shadow reformed. And so, 
life resumed, repeating endlessly, 



with unfeeling entities performing their
unknown meanings of haphazard existence.

I FELL By Kathy Powers

I shine,
Feels fine,
Don’t pine
Just shine.

I glow
And flow
To show
No woe.

SUMMERTIME By Kathy Powers

Summer, a quarter timepiece,
A sticky, sweet section
Of low energy and high temperature.
In Chicago, dog-breath afternoons
With Michigan’s blustery, cooling breezes
Energizes colorful night lie, and,
Intimate conversations and loving embraces.
Summertime, a the time to dodge gang bullets
With an ice cream cone in hand
Chicago, a city of life-guarded beach-scape's.
With children digging water holes
Their adults seeking mating connections..