More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

June 14, 2013

   This is a poem I wrote earlier this year and never posted. That happens a lot. Poems sometimes get lost and you're surprised when you find them. I did a lot of rewrites on this one and will probably do more... later. I do have a favorite line that made me laugh when it appeared on the page. Can you find it?

Lack of Light

 

Shadows, none tonight, except

that one the corner streetlamp
conjures up as it peeks between
the pleats in the window screen.

 

I'm not intimidated or alarmed

by darkness anymore. Don’t need
a nightlight, I don’t leave the TV on
to fall asleep. When I was younger
though, the thought of napping without
a bit of bright to guide me through the night,
it was a tad… unnerving. Oh, the dreams that
I might dream! The silent ones hanging from
the ceiling fan above my bed, just waiting there
for me to dare and close my eyes, they were…
disturbing.  What would I do, what could I do
if I didn’t wake? Stuck in there forever,
ever lost inside some lifeless dreamscape.

 

But nowadays, with so much time behind me,

so little left before me, all this lack of light
feels more akin to a friendly stranger I can
cuddle with for as long as-- well, as long as
lungs breathe, for as long as this heart cares
to beat, for as long as… long is.

 

I don’t know why both day and night exist;

it’s utterly redundant and confusing.
We’re forced to endure the one while suffering  
the other. And you know how I hate choosing.
—rrw o2-23-13 (rewrites o6-11-13)