Nocturne #1
The nation of night
waving the flag of darkness
brings all under the same iron-fisted regime.
Scornful daylight highlights the minute
differences of bodies: all ornamental,
ornately cosmetic but nothing more.
All are slaves to the wakeless, slithering night;
the master of all, protector of none.
Sheep, we the people,
herded by our Dark Mother;
eyes bright with fright,
into the frigid, strangely resplendent,
but terribly tenebrific stygian wasteland,
yes, dark is the night,
that which engulfs all not a stone’s throw
from light-spitting twilight.
Swaddled babes, these nations of men,
building up arsenals, building up walls,
flipping sentences, hurdling words, all hot air acrobatics,
tongue tied deportment,
flashes in spotless laboratories, tests and tests and results,
numbers and theories and schemes, plans;
but here She comes into the sanctity of your mahogany boardroom.
Here She comes into the verdant garden of Gethsemane.
Here She comes into the faux lilac shroud of your basement laundry room.
And here She comes into the prison bright florescent lights of the final class of the day.
Swinging with the time-rusted scythe,
She watches life fly through one
last surprised sigh only half-finished
but now dreadfully complete.
I guess, maybe we should wish
each other a final goodbye,
a contingency really,
something akin to the knocking of wood
or the left shouldered tossing of salt,
often in triplicate,
just before we close our light wearied,
day-crusted eyes to sleep
because waking is never promised.
A.S. Coomer is a writer. He likes cats, books & comics. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in issues of Red Fez, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Blotterature, Literary Orphans Journal, The Quill, Flash Fiction Magazine, Oxford Magazine, The Poets Without Limits, The Broadkill Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Visual Verse, Thirteen Myna Birds, Toledo Streets, 101 Words, Intrinsick Magazine and Serving House Journal. You can find him at www.ascoomer.wordpress.com.
