Night freight

Cherry

By Parson Thru

Wed, 15 Apr 2020
  • 1261 reads
7 comments
 

My sleep is stolen from the strongroom of the night.

I turn the light on, pour myself a drink.

Hear the floorboards, then footsteps passing by my door.

A night-freight connects me to the life that went before.

The room is cluttered. Piles of books. Cases for guitars like sleeping beasts.

Which perfectly depicts my mind's itinerant and temporary state.

I send a WhatsApp. But it seems she’s not awake.

And I’m glad of this, imagining the noises of the compound, pictures by her bed.

My head swarms with formal metre and systemic rhyme.

The stench of urine fills the room. Soles sticky on the vinyl floor.

I pour a drink, listen as another freight fades out into the night.

Close the book, count the hours till morning and turn out the light.

Certificate 18
Poem
Passed on
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by drew_gummerson on

Really good. Just a thought. I felt it needs another line on the end. To give a sense of motion, movement as the freight moves on / away. Just what I instinctively felt. Not a criticism. 
 

And what's the Auden? 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Hi Drew.

Thank you for the cherries, eds. It's been hectic.

I'll have a look at that. Thanks for your feedback. I'm always very grateful for opinions and suggestions.

Auden as in "Night Mail".

With all the diddle-de-dum diddle-de-dee that goes on here, I'm surprised I don't speak down the phone to people in quadruplets.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Ah. I see what you mean. Is that the other one, where they're on the bridge? Idling?

They're going full pelt at the point where I hear them from the bed, but I suppose I could make that clearer in the poem.

You can hear them for miles, that's the thing. I'll look at how I can get a sense of that into it.

Parson Thru

Submitted by drew_gummerson on

I like the line you've added! It adds just the right closure. Imo 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks Drew. I really appreciate the prompt.

Parson Thru

Submitted by catherine poarch on

I don't know where you are or how your are - safe and well I hope - but this definitely catches those sleepless hours when worries are huge and the tiniest sensory disturbance is magnified. I really liked that first line. 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Hi Catherine. Likewise, I hope that you are.

At my mother's house. Been here seven months now. A no win situation before lockdown, it's become a case of trying to survive.

Thanks for your kind words. It's a kind of nowt nor summat piece really. To rhyme or not to rhyme? Give them a metre and they'll take a yard. Etc etc. Take care.

Parson Thru