deepundergroundpoetry.com
The Last Call of Midnight
Awake my old friend midnight,
Let me stay with you awhile
Share knuckled slugs of whiskey
Lay your nakedness over mine.
Your loyal attendant dresses the town’s suit
Creased, crumpled and lapels starched to rest,
Bedraggled lady of the coldest corner
I’ll treat you like an equal ‘til it hurts.
Night’s umbrella flips the wind
Creaks through cracks in the wall,
Curls the pages of old wounds
Wars fought in the bedroom.
The man with white chalk waits to outline
Next corpse in alley or waste ground,
Around these parts, hearts are sliced
And pumped full of junkie dreams.
Count from one to one hundred,
See how sleep is measured in Centuries.
Tell me Miss Midnight
Does she ever still think of me?
Suffocated by sidereal silence
My voice breaks into the distant hills.
and
……a phone call now would wake her up
Let me stay with you awhile
Share knuckled slugs of whiskey
Lay your nakedness over mine.
Your loyal attendant dresses the town’s suit
Creased, crumpled and lapels starched to rest,
Bedraggled lady of the coldest corner
I’ll treat you like an equal ‘til it hurts.
Night’s umbrella flips the wind
Creaks through cracks in the wall,
Curls the pages of old wounds
Wars fought in the bedroom.
The man with white chalk waits to outline
Next corpse in alley or waste ground,
Around these parts, hearts are sliced
And pumped full of junkie dreams.
Count from one to one hundred,
See how sleep is measured in Centuries.
Tell me Miss Midnight
Does she ever still think of me?
Suffocated by sidereal silence
My voice breaks into the distant hills.
and
……a phone call now would wake her up
Published 9th Dec 2022
Author's Note
ERULGCT 170. Because I can.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 3
reading list entries 2
comments 4
reads 189
Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
9th Dec 2022 2:32pm
I was invested by the final line of the first stanza, that sense of the intimate it brings across begins to bloom to life, tepid and fevered and loud with pregnant quietude.
The sense of the living form of the city seems to me to continue into the second stanza, the metaphor of dressing holds a lot of meaning in terms such as society, obligation, routine, appearances, that weary each passing day.
The third stanza has lovely phonetic alliteration and a smooth sparse rhyme, the singular address throughout like a prayer or epistle, feels like longing absence, as to a lover.
Continuing on you draw that sense of death and tragedy that is so commonplace it becomes uniform, the emotional mien of the piece is beautifully subtle yet potent.
I appreciate the flow of the denouement, like fingers trailing and reaching out, quickly withdrawn.
Terrific work Rob, absorbing as music.
The sense of the living form of the city seems to me to continue into the second stanza, the metaphor of dressing holds a lot of meaning in terms such as society, obligation, routine, appearances, that weary each passing day.
The third stanza has lovely phonetic alliteration and a smooth sparse rhyme, the singular address throughout like a prayer or epistle, feels like longing absence, as to a lover.
Continuing on you draw that sense of death and tragedy that is so commonplace it becomes uniform, the emotional mien of the piece is beautifully subtle yet potent.
I appreciate the flow of the denouement, like fingers trailing and reaching out, quickly withdrawn.
Terrific work Rob, absorbing as music.
9th Dec 2022 3:13pm
Many thanks my friend. It’s reassuring to have a reader who is able to articulate and embrace a poem’s intentions. Looking through the window at 2 a.m. the same sounds, visions and silent spaces offer the usual dread and comforting solace. It’s also those moments, loud in ephemeral vision, which draws the mind to absences. A simple pillow can be a memorial tomb stone, especially if still laced with lingering perfume and the palimpsest of lipstick. The washing machine is great for hygiene, but plays havoc with memory truths.
11th Dec 2022 2:57pm
This piece has a powerful, gritty urban poetry to it that’s gorgeous to behold and trips off the tongue. The atmosphere is extremely thick and as sharp as a biting wind, making you feel as if you’re walking home at night through a succession of bad neighbourhoods.
I think that that’s what I like about your poetry, the rich and redolent atmospheres, always making reference to physical objects and sensory experience. Stephen Fry pointed out that it’s a fallacy of how poetry is often understood that it’s airy and ephemeral, when in fact it’s more concerned with the sensuousness of practical realities. Like the opening of the Eliot poem, “The Hippopotamus”:
“The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud”
Your poetry has that same sort of earthiness, just in its interplay of noun and adjective.
I think that that’s what I like about your poetry, the rich and redolent atmospheres, always making reference to physical objects and sensory experience. Stephen Fry pointed out that it’s a fallacy of how poetry is often understood that it’s airy and ephemeral, when in fact it’s more concerned with the sensuousness of practical realities. Like the opening of the Eliot poem, “The Hippopotamus”:
“The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud”
Your poetry has that same sort of earthiness, just in its interplay of noun and adjective.
11th Dec 2022 5:46pm
Appreciated CR. I don't receive many comments (don't give a fluck) but they do come from folk who have a genuine poetic sensibility and knowledge. That is enough for me.
