In the Dead of Night

October 2013

#057

 

In The Still Of The Night

A beautiful song.
An opus.
The owls,
The crickets,
The crows
Start tuning up
At dusk.
As the earth
Loses light,
The music begins.
As the stars
Contact us,
(Those that can penetrate
The pollution),
We day-time creatures
Settle in
For 7 hr. vacation.
But internally
The army of cells
That we are composed of
Set about doing
Their organic work
Building
Repairing
Draining
So that we can,
With new energy,
Sing the day song.

© David Gordon
The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective

 

Flight in Night

Walking down the night path, no earlier than 2 in the morning
I was approaching home, total silence from the trees and the open cut train track
Piercing the quiet was a thunderous bellow
Rapid and rhythmic: pound-pound-pound-pound-pound-pound-pound-pound
as it smooth into beat- beat- beat- beat- beat- beat- beat
The roar deep in the night: the sound of what must have been two hundred ravens
accompanying me as I neared my safe place.

© Ángel L. Martínez 31 Oct 2013
The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective

 

In The Dead Of Night

It happened in the dead of night
It should have given me quite a fright
The door creaked open
soft words were spoken
It was a voice so familiar to me
Just a figure in the corner was all I could see
"Don't worry child, for I am OK" the figure said
"How can you be OK?" I thought.  "You're dead."
But I wasn't scared, or hid under the cover
How could I be scared of my own mother?
It was nearly three years since my mother had died
Every night I would cry and cry
She had started to visit me in the dead of night
She just wanted to see that I was alright
I had initially shown fear at her ghostly figure
Hiding under the covers, I would quiver

But she didn't give up, she kept coming to visit
And gradually I stopped being scared, thinking "What is it?"
She just wanted to see me, she meant me no harm
I longed for her to touch me, to take my arm
Even though she has died, she is still watching over me
And the other six members of my family
I long for the day we can be reunited as seven
To be together, forever, in heaven.

Liz Jury
GROW

 

In The Dead Of Night: Amiri Baraka At 80

The living drumbeat
Let’s call this morning sunshine
A seventh sense that these notes are good for the soul
Yusef Lateef blows the eastern sound
A beautiful horizon that the night sky is blue
and the universe, the sun, comes until the answer is cosmic string
These are my words from the mountain space
that Sun Ra has transformed the rhythms of the saxophone
with strings that heal the human heart
Speak, Amiri, of liberation blues songs from Newark to Harlem and the world
From the bongos to congas
Will you like to survive the human sadness?
Let us be a union for justice and a battle for peace
in honor of mother earth
The plastic people are not fantastic
A funky president and a savage dawn
that pens are ashamed to write
With our spiritual dance by every means
This is our love poem that stands in the dark of the bay
watching it go by as we wave this flag
and the raven is flying above us
Still the baddest that walks and talks into the sun
Down the street the band is playing a bebop melody
Along the Passaic River on your earth day

© Carlos Raúl Dufflar 10/7/13
The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective

 

The Guardian

In the deepest darkest night
When all around is fear and fright
Then you upon the nightmare ride
And demons in dark places hide

Monsters roam and zombies walk
And vampires do their victims stalk
Witches cast their evil spells
And Hell exudes its phosphorous smells

In dungeons cold and damp and deep
Foul creatures of the night do creep
And they'll break out and pull you in
Then the horror will begin

So tonight before you doze
Before your eyes do slowly close
Be sure your windows are shut tight
And your doors closed against the night

Then safely soundly you can sleep
For your guardian watch will keep
Evil he will keep away
And keep you safe till light of day

So in your guardian believe
Then his protection you'll receive
Then he will stay forever near
And you'll no longer need to fear

By Denis Briggs
U3A Pens at Ten

 

Daylight Robbery

She went out and locked the front door,
forgetting to check that the windows were closed.
They got in from round the back.
They ransacked the house, looking for cash.
When she came home she was shocked.
She didn’t want to worry her son.
She wouldn’t call him that time of night
and certainly wouldn’t trouble the Police;
there was little that they could do.
All that was taken was thirty pounds,
so she cleared up the mess and went up to bed.
The very next day her son found her dead.

Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers

 

A Mouse

In the dead of night
I hear a mouse
digging, scratching, gnawing
a hole
trying to get into the house
to be warm in winter.
The mouse is scraping,
digging, thinking:
I am sure
there will be some crumbs
and plenty of food, too.
A cat is sitting on the
other side of wall, waiting
for the mouse to show.

Marie Neumann

 

In The Dead Of Night

Going to the bathroom
and back to the bed.
Listening to the sounds.
The fridge is humming,
the dog yelps
in his sleep.
The faucet in the bathroom
is dripping: drip, drip, drip.
I didn't close it properly.
I have to get up
and do it right.
Back to the bed,
nice, warm bed.
Before I know
I am asleep
without dreams.
It's seven o'clock
morning.
Sleepy day rains.

Marie Neumann

 

In The Lower Sounds

In the lower down sound
I hear something stir
moving  creaking whisper
My lids lift ears strained
Pitch dark descends
In the dead of night
The reed is quite
From the bellows
Of the saxophone
A fox's shriek echoes
In the silence blacked
Across the lower down sounds
That are only heard in
The wilderness lower down
Below
In the dead of night
Where sleep snores

John joseph Sheehy

 

In The Dead Of The Night

In the dead of the night, when a Zombie hour wakes
and walks slowly, purposely towards you, you might wish
for the flesh of a corpse, need its physicality,
since all you have is you, alone with your thoughts

Bruce Barnes
Friend of TheFED