The sound of silence

Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again
because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping,
and the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone, narrow streets of cobblestone,
'neath the halo of a streetlamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp,
when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, split the night,
and touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people, maybe more,
people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening,
people writing songs that voices never shared, and no one dared
to stir the sound of silence.

Fool, said I, you do not know, silence, like a cancer, grows.
Hear my words and I might teach you, take my arms then I might reach you,
but my words, like silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence.

And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they'd made
and the sign flashed its warning in the words that it was forming,
and the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence.