The night guard walks down
The half-deserted street
Occupied by three stray dogs or four
Huddled and coiled
Into a dirty half-sleep in the muck
A faint light cast from the street lamps
Halved by the mass of fireflies
Gathered in the dusty glass cases
A motorcycle booms past
Or a screeching car speeds away
Carrying half-awake sloshed zombies.
The ceiling fan whirrs
Mosquitoes buzz
A fragmented moon shines on the cracked window pane.
I toss and turn on my pillow
Half a sleep induced by a tranquilizer
Waiting for a tomorrow,
Hoping for a full sun to shine.
One of the joys any artist can derive from practising their craft,is the freedom to invent and inhabit an alternate persona within any chosen narrative. Mordant and doleful are recounted with appropriate pace and colouring; refernces to a half or halves, are the poems iron-bands constricting the narrator’s view of the world. I detected more than a dash of Hitchcock;the off camera noises(real or imagined).Noir just got darker!
Thanks Louis, I’m delighted by your appreciative comments. And I take the Hitchcock connection as a huge compliment! Besides being a great filmmaker, he was simply awesome in creating an atmosphere. Et oui, je suis une femme noire……