Nightlong Poems | Examples

Cold

1.
hot coffee cradled 
in cold hands -
I sip slowly

2.
doona -
nightlong tug of war
between head and feet

At dusk when my shadows retreat

At dusk when my shadows quit me,
That’s when hundred arrows hit me.

So far some faceless folks fooled me,
My own close to heart now cheat me.

A feeling heart hails thee, my friend,
Come heart to heart, why audit me?  

Come, pry unto my nightlong dreams,
Thence, for what I say credit me.

Dawn dawns, if dream deprived I wake,
Daylong your reveries greet me. 
_____________________
Ghazal |18.07.2025| dream, passion, sleep,

Breath

The last whispery remains
of a dream fray into forgetfulness.
I get up and go downstairs
to quietly sit in a chair
beside the window and stare 
into the outside dark. A few stars
hang suspended  
in the silhouette of a tree.
Six o'clock.
The morning seems 
to have been waiting for me 
to bring breath to its silence 
and movement to its still. 
It is like a child eager to show off 
its tricks - birds bursting out 
of bushy hiding places, 
a backyard revealed from beneath
a cloak of nightlong dark
and me from my own.

The dawn when dawns

Drowsy dreams when wake up with life, 
Dawn breaks to light from nightlong dark, 
Birds sing when to welcome first spark, 
Skies turn when from grey to red-rife, 
On trees when I see tender leaves,
New hopes sprout in my unsure mind,
My doubts when a new address find,
Hope a new hinge on which life lives.

When dawn dawns, hope takes deeper roots
A hopeful heart finds a new voice,
The human will a winning choice,
From tender raw, ripen new fruits.
A dawn dawns with a band of hues,
Each of which with a choice of clues.
__________________________________ 
Sonnet (musings) | 18.02.2017 | dawn, dream

Haikus on humour - I

Where is mystery
On how Moses makes his tea?
We know, Hebrews it.

It won’t surprise me
If a cartoonist’s found dead 
And clues are sketchy.

I catch it the least
That gossamer lovely beast,
Love still if I mist.

My blood report O
When showed it was type-A blood,
Oh, it was Typo. 

I stayed up all night
To trace on Sun’s nightlong flight,
Then it dawned with light.

Like king’s royal crown,
The book: Gravity-less Ground
Was hard to put down.
____________________________ 
Haiku |01.03.2024| humour

It Was Just Dark Before Dawn

I see no more dancing, I hear no more songs,
The neighbors are now quiet and the lights are all gone.
There are no soul in the streets, no sound nightlong,
Now that dullness begins to set in, I guess happiness is gone.

I thought that spring is no more,
But oh! I guess I was wrong.
I brightly smile as someone knocks on my door,
A new beginning is waiting, it was just dark before dawn.

The Park Fountain

I have walked about as far
as I can go before a weariness 
threatens to withdraw the pleasure 
of the evening light and the easy 
mood of the park.  The fountain
that had spurted and splashed 
all day has withdrawn back
into its nightlong still
and caught a rising moon 
in its mirrored skirt.

I sit and close my eyes
and feel the world withdrawing 
into somewhere else
as I let go each sound
into a growing quiet. 
It's becoming harder to hold
myself here rather than
to float off where 
the sounds go and all things
not anchored to a self
find a place in the night.

It would be good to go there
and see each atom 
of who I am settle 
a stillness stretched across
time and space and there,
become part of what
mirrors light
even if it's for no more
than the length
of an earthly night.

The Dawn When Dawns

Stars twinkling steadily
The night must have passed peacefully,
Keen, hoping to meet her ally…

Bright silver of the waxing moon
In nightlong warm darkness of June,
Must have hurried up to reach soon…

So smoothly as swims an otter,
A swan as sails upon water,
A much-caring Indian daughter…

So approached night to embrace dawn—
The glamorous sister so known,
Leaving her starry friends alone…

And sleepless night now somewhat tired,
When sighted her, brightly attired,
Bright moon a bit of blur acquired…

Early dawn as always looked fresh
In her red-crimson silken sash,
Lady morn keen to mix and mesh,

Honey-drop-like-thick melting night
Waking as if from nightlong blight
Merged when with all-emerging light…

And I slowly wake when from sleep,
A crop of nightlong rest to reap,
Busy hours from my blanket peep.

The dawn slowly turns into day,
Me on my morning routine way,
My life turns one more page today.

And my mind’s on a musing flight,
Wonder, if life’s mere one turn, quite
Of kaleidoscope’s day and night! 
____________________________________ 
Musings |10.11.2021| Terza Rima

The Closed Door As Calls

Just as my sleep is going deep,
The nightlong foe, my closed door calls. 

Derailing my dream state of sleep, 
Upsetting it, the closed door calls. 

Like cicadas’ continuous clip, 
I wonder why my closed door calls. 

Making my heart’s wilds me to whip,
With a rapid snip closed door calls.

Who’d come in at such time to peep? 
Tired be when night, why closed door calls? 

Making my loneliness to leap, 
Oh desperate, my closed door calls. 

My mind churns and limbs toss and flip, 
Is it my estranged soul that calls? 
_________________________________________ 
Ghazal |06.11.2021|

At Night When I Am With Me

The time descends when night to be, 
In close touch, communion with me,
It holds mirror to me to see,

To look into the day so spent,
To scan the truth of each moment,
It’s time to seek adverse comments.

To see if done I’ve anything
That can fetch to me fair blessing—
If someone’s autumn’s turned to spring…

Time to delve into my heart deep,
If there’s a deed that helps me reap
A nightlong refreshing deep sleep,

And if that search takes any long—
Ill omens portending a wrong,
Let Heavens nudge me O ere long.
___________________________________
Introspection |35.12.2020| Terza Rima (triplets)
Topic: sleep, mirror

Innocent

Short black pants with straggling hair
Holding a glass of beer
Laugh loudly, wrist with grasping 

Squiring and dancing nightlong

Acid house echoed all over 
White shirt foxed a red lips mark
Push desire until maximum peak

Blind choice makes you die

The Sun Seems To Say

The rising sun seems to tell me:
What you saw so far was a dream,
Ended has now the night nigh grim,
Do thou red band of spectrum see,
The nightlong dream was just your past,
Go with the spell of light I cast
And try stretch 'now' longer to last, 
For, future unfolds dressed as now—
Hold it to heart and not somehow,
Fill your cup of joy to the brim,
The fount's ever full from within,
Your job's to turn grey into green.

_____________________________________________ _____
The sun rises every day and has something to say. We never care to listen. But today's sun is determined to say its say.
_____________________________

08.14.2020

White Moon

Have you seen the morning moon?
She is not the cold hung rock
that swings upon the noose of night
that one is a dead face
submerged in a sea of darkness.
No, that is not her,
she is a lovely woman,
but pale and wane is she.

She has labored nightlong
planting seeds of light 
beneath the fertile earth;
the work has made her beautiful,
the work has brought her to 
this ethereal transparency.

Look at her form, how it changes.
Once she rode the sailing clouds
clad in an adamantine silver,
she was fierce in her becoming,
her youthful unveiling,
but now the long night dies,
and she also must pass away
to where oceans are teardrops.

No, she is not the dead moon,
she is our ghostly guest,
reflecting the Beloved herself.
Admit her!

She waits at the step of dawn 
though pale and wane
she is once more becoming
the bright translucency of every eye.

Mixing Flavors of Soup

Slow- fire gleams upon a nearby field
as I  gather herbs from  twig-like strips
adding  creamy broth to stir the brew
under a  moonlight of summer’s heat … 
The mellow breeze warms  my  thoughts
where hands pour lemon mint, in a campfire
kindling  essence of  words for poetry soup:
then to   grasp fireflies brightly adorned
until  cheeks flush with tales spun nightlong.

The purée explodes  to drink the light
of my muse, her delicacy  soaked in potion
with a  dash of tangy sage to flame verse 
or rhyme        Oh the meal  is simple
but rich,  delicious,    releasing a flavour
uncommon   even to me… a  concoction
different each time ,   when a woman’s mix
of language heals, excites, and  chars each
sip of soup mixed from the heart’s campfire.



Contest: Cindy Rockwell’s  My Poetry Soup Recipe
 1.30.2017

Christmas Bells

The Bells of Christmas ring
Ding dong, ding dong 
Little children sing
O' Silent Night!* --all night long
Chiming n' glad tidings bring
Singsong, singsong

Oh, hear the sweet, ye' bells of noel
Ding-ding-dong-bong!
The church bells n' the steeple propel
Ringing praises to a sky song
Upon sound of notha' bell
Angels n' sky flying nightlong

Tinkle, jingle, ring 
Bling, swing n' ding,  
Ye' bells of Christmas ding
Chiming all o'er the earth
Happy sounding
Makes music of earth' wind mirth

Bells at Christmas bringing
Ding dong, ding dong 
Christmas bells r' ringing!
All day and all night long
Joy is ev'rywhere!
In the frosty air

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