Best Nighters Poems
Four “Golden Girls” seated at a table
Grey streaks our hair, but minds remain stable
Convention is underway
Michael has something to say
He opens our meeting with a fable
It’s about a tortoise that beats a hare
Some of the “fast writers” begin to glare
Joyce, Francine and Barbara know
It takes time for verse to grow
We’re the queens of rewriting; this we swear
Iolanda’s introduced to read her book
“Lava of my Soul,” no gobbledygook
We’re mesmerized by each line
At the end we toast with wine
Joyce says, “Now those words took some time to cook.”
It’s Karen’s turn to read “Silent Whispers”
We see tears falling into John’s whiskers
“Tears of joy,” Francine exclaims
For Karen’s Best Seller fame
Applause rings out from grateful listeners
After the “meet and greet” it’s nearly dawn
The crowd starts to thin as our comrades yawn
Joyce, Francine call it a night
But Barbara still sits upright
We two remain when most others are gone
One poet called us “Late Night Cockroaches”
This indignity did not encroach us
We call ourselves “LNCs”
Awake in wee hours with ease
Waiting for our princes to approach us
That’s when the James Brothers draw near
Peranteau and Fraser, to make it clear
With two erotic writers
LNCs pull “all nighters”
Knowing that we can propose; it’s Leap Year!
*Entry for Michael’s “A Table of Four” contest
At my table: Carolyn Devonshire
Joyce Johnson
Francine Roberts
Barbara Gorelick
Categories:
nighters, friendship, funnytime,
Form:
Limerick
Habitually, feeling an itch to write,
I’m introspective: sitting at the table
over a blank sheet, cherishing my blight
and rust, I think: “What if I'll not be able
to write a single stanza anymore?
What if to chuck it all, to travel, omnia
mea mecum porto*… What is all this for:
the doubts, the all-nighters, the insomnia?
What if…" Oh, wonder! In my line of sight
I have the lines: “…feeling an itch to write,
I’m introspective”.
(lat.) "All that is mine I carry with me", the quote that Cicero ascribes to Bias of Priene.
25.10.2019
Itch, Witch, Glitch Or Twitch Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nina Parmenter
Categories:
nighters, poetry, writing,
Form:
Rhyme
In college I frequently pulled all nighters
And showed up for morning tests somewhat less brighter
With caffeine and pizza I struggled to stay awake
And was always prepared for exams to take
To excel on the curve, you had to be a fighter
For twelve hours straight, I crammed names and dates in my head
History consumed me and I never went to bed
Memorization proved a successful technique
But my brain grew weary and my eyesight was weak
I always entered the classroom feeling half dead
But never did I experience more dismay
Than I felt when I walked into a class one May
To find I was the only student in the room
Within there was quite a sense of impending doom
The test, you see, had been scheduled for the next day
*Limerick series for Paula's "The Light Is On, But Nobody's Home" challenge
Categories:
nighters, angst, funny
Form:
Limerick
There's this game I've been
playing
And it's taught me stuff
I've not had it long
But I've played enough to know
If I don’t turn back now
It's going to be rough
I'm looking for some luck cos' I
feel real stuck
The first few levels
Were easy to complete
They make the deep end look
like a couple of feet
But as the game progressed
It picked up the heat
Now the Mother-****ing
shallow end looks deep.
The Story-Line was mind
blowing at the start
Slowly I climbed up , Part by
Part
Progressing, Tired, Game saved
in the book
The All nighters took -
Great...now I'm hooked
When I'm playing, I feel
Skillfully Brilliant
Like a militant, untouchable,
full of resilience
I got the skills to pay the bills
All my debts considered repaid
Until what goes up must come
down
One by One people Fade
If you understand the
metaphoric game that I played
Then you understand the steps
I had to take
After two years feeling high I
finally found
This isn't life it's time to come
down.
Categories:
nighters, abuse, addiction, deep, power,
Form:
Rhyme
Finding Presence
Night sky beckoning dawn
Gentle sensations
Early morning walks
Empty avenues
Central Park breezes
Village cobblestone streets
Wet with glistening reflections
Accompany the seeker’s every move
Citified whispers
Discordant choruses
The street cleaner
The sliding steel-front security doors
Excited canines straining leashes
Open casements echoing emphysema-regrets
Merging with the early morning smells and start-up images
City’s reality mix awakening
Conscious-walking shakes loose somnolence
Opening eyes to the gargoyles atop historic landmarks
Their stoic residence mirrored in all-glass surroundings
Urban growth towering over huddling addicts of all types
Weary of sleepless nights
Enjoined by occasional pouting mannequins
Dressing light-starved windows
Poised to portray tourist-trap knockoffs
Rayon for silk
Fantasy for verity
Predatory “going out of business” choices ubiquitous
Shut down shops—beaten
Barely open shops—clinging
Wanderers drifting listlessly
Rising early by guilty conscience
Some prodding their welfare bodies to move
Others fearing unfaithful one-nighters become known
Old widows lean from their tenement windowsills
Having endured another sleepless night of heat
Too poor to leave the city
Too proud to ask of children
Soon
Sunrise bathes the grayness with color
Subway entrances congest
Yellow cabs begin cacophonous warm-ups
Like an orchestra of out-of-tune instruments
Their blasts are met with the inescapable “Taxi!” “Taxi!”
Deli workers spread cream cheese
Warm Bear Claws
Brew bad coffee
Wish their customers “have a good one”
Keeping secure their jobs
For another day
Returning home
Five flight walk up
One’s feet beg relief from the morning roam
A pull on the carton of OJ
A flip-on of the two-burner
The water to boil
A drop into the drug-from-the-dumpster-couch
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts in waiting
Want ads front and center
A few deep breaths
Just another day
Surviving the city
Categories:
nighters, on work and working,
Form:
Free verse
Used To Be
You recall both you and me drinking when the sun came up?
You say there was a time or three there was no coffee in my cup?
Kicking around old memories of neon and all nighters.
The way we used to throw em down back alley drunken fighters.
Cussing like a sailor when there's nothing else to say.
Each Friday night a weekend leave on some distant harbors bay.
No thought for consequences no thought for nights in jail.
Sleep it off til morning and not even post no bail.
All these things you say are true but such a distant memory.
Like the man you must be thinking of sounds like who I used to be.
Forgotten anniversaries, birthday parties and baseball games.
Taking extra time off work and forgetting peoples names.
Saying I would be there then not show up at all.
Promising of course I will and then never even call.
Treating people like old news like they never even mattered.
Not even back then miss a beat when I watched as their dreams shattered.
I can't bear to go back there I can't even bear to see.
All the things I used to do and the man I used to be.
Lets talk about on down the road there's brighter days ahead.
Not about the used be's or speak ill of the dead.
Edwin C Hofert
Categories:
nighters, age, change, forgiveness, growing
Form:
Rhyme
Vishweshwara, my lord my devotion
I was once born; I think you knew it
I lost something far, not far from my feet
But now it is extreme from my heart
It is my confidence, courage, curiosity
I am missing my poetic ardor
I am lacking my statistic fervor
I am omitting my valor
Once I used to be a victor
Now nighters of it a sector
Once I used to be like me
Now a word branded to be inspiration is stabbing me.
Once my dreams used be as cumbersome as clouds
Daring and baring the heavy heat of sun
But now I am left as one with notions none
There is no hope to cope up with any agile pressure.
But still I will not stop as I am pale
Till the last atom of most popular oxygen I inhale.
The line of attack I toddle may gaze sole
But my emotions are full and whole in its role.
Categories:
nighters, beautiful, dream, environment, feelings,
Form:
Elegy
Give me your early mornings
Give me your half-awake eyes
Drag me in when you're pulling away
Match our breaths when we've synchronised
Give me your slow afternoons
Give me your train of thought
Distract me with your sugar-coated mouth
And watch back as my teeth rot
Give me your all-nighters
Give me your secrets never said out loud
Cry into my collarbones
You're safe with me, I vow
Give me your bad days
Give me the sweet ones, too
I'll follow you to heaven,
Even hell if I'm with you.
Categories:
nighters, 10th grade, beautiful, for
Form:
Rhyme
Long-ago classmates, we’ll spend
the evening recalling ourselves
before we became
antique – back in the academic
stomp of caffeine all-nighters, pop
quizzes, scrabble games laced
with words from Chaucer’s time,
a mixture of tongues across
bloody waters; straddling borders
before things got settled into
nations, currencies, standardized
spelling and our own
marriages, divorces, and
dissolutions.
Those good old nail-bitten days
we’d never want to relive
except as history –
gathered for just one evening
in memory.
Categories:
nighters, age, memory, school, time,
Form:
Free verse
Been called sexy, been called old and crotchety
Maybe I'm somewhere in between
I'm probably closer to the sex symbol type
With this body, you know what I mean
Young ladies are always clamouring around
For a piece of this gorgeous physique
Sorry to have to tell them, to take a number
For a chance at the thrill they seek
I'm usually an extremely low key kind of guy
But since building this stunning body
Females flock around, it can get quite annoying
Sorry, really don't mean to get snotty
I'm hankering for just a little peace and quiet
To recharge my batteries so to speak
Eventually all-nighters are gonna catch up
Leaving me real pooped out and weak
Think I might return to my overweight self
Less hassles with the opposite sex
Didn't realize all the women it would attract
Not something I'd really expect
Just funnin'
© Jack Ellison 2104
Categories:
nighters, humorous,
Form:
Quatrain
I fought for my country
I gave eighteen months
But the war was unloved
And I was called baby killer
The only death that counted
Was my best friend
I served for ten years
Protecting against a foe that could destroy us all
Away from my family a week at a time,
I spent nights at college,
To provide for my kids
When I became a civilian my job was now gone
I’d served for ten years it was considered too long.
I supported my bosses it without caring why
But then in the end they just said Good=bye
I worked countless hours to keep things afloat
I pulled lone all nighters when computers were broke
They gave me assurance that money would come,
But then came reviews, they thought me a bum
I found a new job three hours away
I worked for a pittance, long hours each day
They moved me to Dallas with nary a word,
Still working at College like I was a nerd.
My kids are all gone,
They speak to me not,
My wife is gone too
I grumble a lot.
I know that I’m lonely
I think up a way
To find some new friends
To help pass the day.
I can’t find a partner
They all seem so cold
My crime and my sin
Is becoming old
I live with my cats
I must be a sight
I’m sitting here waiting
To turn out the light
Categories:
nighters, age, loneliness,
Form:
again I sit in the seat of a student, back to being a kid.
back to the realities of life, in which I have hid.
again come the papers and exams
back to the all nighters and study crams
again set outside of this basic mold
back to the iron bars, secluded and cold
I am who I am, set outside of the box
my mind is my own, and my thoughts are unlocked
Categories:
nighters, life, school, work,
Form:
Rhyme
Time by growing twisting all diameters
while pass by, time didn’t fare back
Once matter precious when all is amuse
when by lightness, the soul paragon
Time! ... the duration thy birth
any out ways to be, up away untimely
By threes abduced faculty design
in past, present, futurity
Time maybe something for nothing to you,
Thou —for your penury!
But —time verily it something
serious by, my appraisal esteem
In best use at my way holy to comply
from periods’ solar thy nighters
Over a passage to be accomplished
draw, of the rainbow and rainfall
El time ever gone with me, I using
in arouse mine be it according
Wishy is sets’ from my heart and mind.
Categories:
nighters, life, nature, time, time,
Form:
Lyric
Mosquitoes
Summer's pesky buzzy biters
Mosquitoes
In summertime everyone goes
(unless to show off like fighters)
indoors to thwart itchy-nighters.
Mosquitoes.
Categories:
nighters, animals, nature, seasons
Form:
Rhyme
She waits tables everyday
penning stories on her break;
Packing those tips far away
wondering what it will take
to create a paperback
characters and adventure;
Never again plates to stack
not work, it's only pleasure
Clocked out then its off to class
studying hard is the deal,
Hoping to more than just pass
her fantasy will be real;
Determined and with talent
all red eyed with all nighters,
seeing life after student
soon a best selling writer
Categories:
nighters, dream, write,
Form:
Quatrain