Where lies the loneliness of the night?
Its dark shadow stirs beneath the eyes, the mind will float aimlessly in a dreamlike state.
Beyond the window pane hides the truth
Its howls and cries muted, the beast, where mares are formed, escapes its shackled lair.
Tossing and lashing, the nocturnal wanderer lusts after its next prey.
What malevolent force walks the street each night
whilst cotton shrouds the innocence of man.
Hours chime to dawn and with it the sanctuary of morning light.
The twilight preludes the backstory of our fears that manifest to a nocturnal cycle of twists and turns wrapped in a sweated sheet. We are the authors but typecast as the protagonist of the weak, narrating each chapter from our subconscious pool where the last page is torn from the spine and the end never comes.
We rise, battered and bruised, pieces of us lie scattered about the bedroom floor. We try to remember, we try to forget in equal measure the scenes of our play for today. The cast slowly walks away, stage right to dust, and we carry on.
The night slowly unveiled its meek presence,
One final call from nature its essence;
When lullabies awaken some from sleep,
While others conjure softer naps to reap.
The moon and stars had just chased out the sun,
Their twinkles the clouds could no longer shun.
The sky now dons an airglow-twined garment—
Its twilight robe left sombrely dormant.
The chirps and croaks were hymns for that silence,
Both friend and foe in ruly defiance,
They thrilled the dark as they all soared and flew,
Unbothered, though their seasoned songs weren't new.
Sharp jaws filled stomachs yearning to be dared,
Yet weaker grasps let certain grubs be spared,
All in the race to beat the sunlight scare,
Before the night leaves nothing left to share.
Foggy air
dims midnight vision,
my eyes beg to see
beyond the tip of my nose—
where night daunts.
My glasses
fogged by chilly wind,
holding back my steps,
darkness deepens my nightmare—
fog chills scare.
Not for a second think I've left the soup kitchen
and quite frankly, I'm tired of all the B itching.
not from those real poets who know how to write
with pen in hand or fingers on a keyboard in flight.
I'm dealing with a couple of serious family issues.
A very sick granddaughter, and it's giving me the blues
My best friend, my sister's heart is out of whack
I'm just done with AI attacks and counterattack
I haven't abandoned the site, only entering contests
and hoping Artificial Intelligence will soon be laid to rest.
Probably not. I've more important things to do for a while,
so, as Duke Beaufort likes to say... live life with a smile.
s
o
r
row m o v e s s l o w l y
yet its poison travels
f a s t ~
tears it b
r
i
n
g
s don’t d
r y
t
h
o
ugh s l o w is its t r u d g e
h a p p i n e s s remains its s c a r e~
it b o l t s
from its
s i g h t
Contest: YOUR CHOICE n
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Contest Judged: May 25th, 2025 2:41:00 PM
Placement: First
A scare lounged deep within the hall,
As shadows danced along the wall.
A piercing ray cut through the night,
Yet filled the air with chilling fright.
A whisper stripped the place so bare,
But left a deeper dread to share.
The Brown Bear
The brown bear doesn’t like his territory to share
If you happened to wander in you would err
If you shouted at him, he would not easily scare
But promptly dine on you without a care
a weak, tiring roar~
the same one that once shook the jungles...
now too feeble to scare.
Its strength fades to past glory...
as death lingers close to claim.
As my soul floats in tensed darkness,
My heart beats in lifeless starkness,
A faint hope pierces my despair,
As my knees glued firm to prayer.
I soared with sour taste of my sores,
My favours, all burned to vapours,
Poverty beckoned with stern stare,
As my knees glued firm to prayer.
Friends stayed far to gloat my sorrow,
Night stretched long, no hope for morrow,
Sadness comes with relentless scare,
As my knees glued firm to prayer.
My spirit cried for God's favour,
His grace became my sole saviour,
Right from then I enjoyed his care,
As my knees glued firm to prayer.
As shadows laid where none could go,
The dark sky etched fear in a scrawl,
Making hearts leap clean out of sight,
Silhouettes of danger scared all.
A gentle breeze whispered of fright,
Meanwhile, death crept with aching flow.
The silence then started to scream,
The fear shifted to my bladder,
My trousers bore a stinking stench;
The quake of shame made me sadder.
The fire of fear failed to quench;
That nightmare failed to be a dream.
To the angels my spirit pled.
The birds watched my fret from the trees;
Their silhouettes loomed in the night.
My shirt soaked in sweat’s chilling breeze.
The devil ignored my soul's plight;
He let me go when my soul fled.
Far to heaven’s gates my wings flew,
There, songs of praise the angels sang.
Fear quivered and fled from their glow,
The bell of life they softly rang.
That made me cheat death here below.
Then back to the earth my soul blew.
As shadows laid where none could go,
The dark sky etched fear in a scrawl,
Making hearts to leap out of sight,
Silhouettes of danger scared all,
A cooly breeze whispered the fright,
Meanwhile, death crept closer too slow.
All rabbits chased out of their holes,
Snakes now make their burrows their own:
Their venom, their flight it controls.
All rabbits chased out of their holes.
How to scare out the snakes, their goals?
The snakes not worried, as they moan.
All rabbits chased out of their holes,
Snakes now make their burrows their homes.
Shetland Sheepdog Charlie jumped high in the air
Sheep he could handle, but this creature was unfair
As far as he knew it was an alien or a creature from far away
I was lucky to have my camera that day
I wish now I had put it on video, for it was a hilarious sight
Charlie ran off and hid, almost into the night
The mouse had been scared too, but he was braver now
He scuttled in the barn and hid under the cow
My children were going to call Charlie names like Scaredy Cat
I told them this would hurt him, so please don’t do that
One of them wanted to keep the mouse in his room.
I scooted the creature out of the barn with a broom.
There's an eerie feeling in the air tonight.
Voices in the distance seem full of fright.
Crisp cold winds that blow
chilling to the bone...
leaves rustling in the darkness, unknown.
Silence even whispers loud the fear,
Silhouettes of ghosts on trees' barks appear,
waving mystic spears that sang in the winds
heard only by already frightened minds.
The wings of both the devil and the angels
confused the eyes by the winds that dishelves
the tinctures of darkness and light in the clouds,
that separated the moon from the stars in the crowds,
A frog nearby, its eyes full of dark fright,
it jolted a snake, its body slick and tight.
It fell on my head and I fainted in my fears.
But quickly woken up by its hissing near my ears.
I ran helter-skelter, the snake joined me
but 'twas the humming of a flying bee,
that stopped my run, only to find my heart
hanging out as the snake and the bee depart.
With fear I begged Halloween to stop its torment,
it refused while darkness still was present.
Then, I heard the approaching steps of sunlights,
that was when I was freed from all my frights.
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