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AFTER MIDNIGHT

Moonrise, most eyes
Wallwards, heavy with dreaming;
A single exception:
Comes the witching hour I'm waiting
Quite awake, anticipating
The masquerade of shades.

Darkness, heartless,
Looms ahead like a chasm,
Sweeps out, a phantasm,
Draws on dusk its magic curtains;
Come what must, the night-time's certain:
Shawl of fate: opaque.

In the moonlight
After midnight
Strange thoughts take shape
Beneath sable skies;
No learned treatise,
All they seek is
To be unworldly-wise.

Sleazy secrets
Sneaking under my window
At quarter past midnight;
In the street there echo footfalls,
Distant whispers, some tom-cat calls
To his mate: meow.

Rivers slither,
Snakes entwined in love's ardour
Slide down to the harbour,
Where ghosts come to gaze in mirrors;
In blackwater starlight glimmers –
Night's array: a brocade.

In the moonlight
After midnight
What brave new world
Has unfurled its sails?
Rough winds it rides must
Dispel disguise just
To tell their blustery tales.

Crickets humming,
Pulses drumming beat faster,
Keep pace with love's laughter;
He and she, chance combinations,
Three blind mice – the cats will chase them.
Just Nature's way to play games.

Hustling, bustling,
Frenzied figures careening:
The dance of the demon.
Sequin-wreathed, the street-rites rhythmic
Reach a climax cataclysmic
Where neon globes will explode.

(1981)
in the moonlight
graphic by Stephen Alsford
adapting public domain clip art and a detail from an untitled work by Kippelboy
Created: November 17, 2014. © Stephen Alsford