In the wind of the night,
a dog howls at the crescent
moon fractioned against
the round shadow
of its former fullness, leaking absinthe
dreams over the restless, fretful earth,
troubling its insomniacs
with wide-eyed consciousness,
as if Lethe flowed around them
but they somehow remained completely dry.
Copyright 2017
T. Allen Culpepper
Nothing going toward darkness
stops that early, though it moves
haltingly, loitering half-shadowed
between moonbeams, alternately
lobbing fears at your window
and slinking back behind
nightmare trees. Anxious
agitation winds you up in sheets,
but the tangled covers cover
nothing; going toward darkness
you shiver, cold, exposed.
Note: Based on a deconstruction of Mark Strand’s “The Coming of Light” for a workshop led by Jericho Brown.
Copyright 2017
T. Allen Culpepper
When it’s 5 a.m. but you’re wide awake
on a summer day when there’s no need
for early rising, no hurry to get moving,
what can you do really but sit on the porch
in your underwear, drinking black coffee in the dark,
watching cats prowl the yards and mourning
the loss of stars as the sky begins to brighten
slightly and a gentle wind breaks the stillness,
stirring the uppermost branch of the hackberries,
ruffling the feathers of the early birds
anticipating the dawn in that long, lonely
moment just before it that brings to mind
departed lovers and forgotten dreams;
but the birds sing reassuringly
as the first light reveals the first blossoms
on a late-blooming crepe myrtle,
and the coffee is good and strong.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
