Once, when no star shined
on slick, black, asphalt roads,
the murky wetness of November's
watered nights a freedom-feeling
and strangeness-sense inspired.
The moisture lubricated
sluggish mental cogs that
all the dirty, dry, autumnal
season rusted tight and atrophied.
Wildness no man can tell I knew then.
All November's labored length
my nightly notions filled:
my bacchic spirit soared, and flew,
traveled far, saw much in waking dream,
along a single street, wet and splotched
with light from cars which coughed their fumes
and passed my momentary immortality.
And now...time has come when
I no longer feel delight to revel
in the wildness that I knew:
senses, now subordinate to sense,
defuse the spell and November nights
are merely murky.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.