NOCTURN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cicadas gather…
perspicuous serenade
sung in native tongue
Categories:
nocturn, 12th grade, nature, night,
Form: Haiku
Drifting in silence, no haven in sight,
Alone in the crowd, under the pale moonlight.
Whispers of home, now ghosts in the wind,
A solitary journey, with no beginning or end.
Love's sweet chorus, a forgotten song,
In its absence, nights feel so long.
Trusting hearts led astray, left to fray,
In the echo of promises that faded away.
Hollow echoes fill spaces where hope used to dance,
Now shadows embrace me, in a cold, empty trance.
Tears to the heavens, a silent plea,
"Is there solace for a soul lost at sea?"
Joy, a distant flicker, elusive and slight,
In the vast void, I'm a lone, flickering light.
Time marches on, yet I stand still,
A prisoner of solitude, against my will.
A specter in life's grand masquerade,
Where once was fire, now only shade.
In the silence, my heart's quiet cries,
As I wait for dawn, where no sunrise lies.
Categories:
nocturn, angst, deep, desire, hurt,
Form: Free verse
Fishnets,
lamplight legs,
broken raincoat.
It happens.
Baby sings my blues.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
It occurs on the edge of light
a dim tinged dark is rolled back
followed by dream-walking eyes.
A time when heroes
are at their weakest,
when troops turn restlessly
in their fox holes,
where lions hunt inside
a rapidly closing circle
The half-light
only awakens more shadows
until apprehension clings
to every breath.
It is then that your green-eyed cat,
your familiar and pet,
leaps upon your chest,
only then does a naked dawn
slip through drawn curtains.
The cat purrs,
relaxes into that dredged-out hollow
you tried to hide within,
and so the day moves in
to claim you.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
The male ward is never quiet at night,
machines hooked-up to invisible bodies
buzz and beep.
Someone’s moaning in his sleep.
I listen to the late-shift nurses gossiping
at their station.
Follow their footsteps as they move
from somewhere to some other place.
Every hour she arrives by my bed to check my vitals.
mostly I contrive to be unconscious -
just savoring her gentle touch.
Beds creak as patients turn in their discomfort.
I know what she looks like; petite, lovely.
I got myself stabbed in Kuala Lumpur, my fault,
got too drunk to be careful. It’s 1981
back then China Town could get rough.
I’m planning to marry the Chinese nurse
soon as I am up and about.
Meanwhile the other sick folks here
piss their beds, fart, or cough up a lung,
seemingly hell bent on disturbing
my drug induced fantasies.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Just before dawn,
gloom thickly laid around your head.
A time when heroes are at their weakest,
when troops turn restlessly in their fox holes,
where lions hunt inside a narrowing
sliver of night.
The suffering and ill at ease
feel a crawling flesh drag itself over their minds.
Then perhaps, a green-eyed tabby cat
leaps onto your chest. You relax into its soft purring.
Then the light slips naked and fresh through drawn drapes
seeking a heart to love.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
In the country we see more
when it is the darkest.
Horses shine in the moonlight.
Stars bore holes through infinity.
When a full moon
leaps over the trees
the land ripples
with nocturnal exposures,
things unnoticed in daylight.
After a deep gloom
when nothing glows or shimmers
the dawn can look like a shipwreck,
as if a night sea had crashed
upon sleeping eyes.
Later, daylight struggles up its beach
shaking off a leaching blindness.
In the country,
just one star is enough to see by
we don't need a starfield,
but in the city
just one streetlight
can cast acres of shadow.
In the country
we look up to confirm where we are.
In the city
we look up and wonder if we are lost.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
,Center>The streets are ridge-backed and growling.
City lights glare like outflanked samurai.
Your thin hand dices words
into sideswipes.
Whiskey blooms in your orchid mouth.
I am led to where a lust
is armored, and snorting to be free.
Stories groom our hungers.
The night camps
in a small neon room.
Categories:
nocturn, poetry,
Form: Free verse
When the eyes could no longer hold what’s brimming
and the fingers do nothing
but spread it on to what’s wrinkling.
When the voice is a strange thing
for the continuous vowels are worn out…shrieked at himself.
Then the narcissistic grin is all that gratifies the soul
which no one has ever come in contact with.
They speak of it when they’re broke
yet it’s broke too.
Escape is but a word.
You run,
but
the
eyes
of
the
rotten
follow.
To feed is luscious.
Just one night
when the god is asleep.
Let me feed.
Categories:
nocturn, passion,
Form: Free verse
I let go the day
Embraced the night
Birdsong faded away
Shadows fell
Never across my heart
Clouds passed
The moon rising
A distant church bell
Stars glittered bright
Celestial heavens turned,
above the moons' soft light
I watched stars too
As they shone in deepest velvet blue
I embraced the night,
with all its' charm
and all its' delight
A gentle lightening in the sky
A hint of birdsong
Welcomed the day
To the night...
I said goodbye
Categories:
nocturn, imagination, inspirational, mystery, uplifting,
Form: Ballad