#nocturne
The strings, the horns, the deep in the night drums,
A piece of your soul lost within the darkest thrums
Loves a black Nocturne nocturnus, music in a night
Inspired, evocative, shaped by, given voice, a blight
There is an ab sense that struggles composes a tone,
In a marrow of a song, softens pain, shadows moan,
That rhythm is almost tender holy silent dark in sad
Shout from a rooftop Mountains push us past, a bad
I listen, still, to you, music you leave in the dark red,
Rests a black memory past a night lies dark in a bed.
Apr 3
Apr 3, 2026 at 8:20 AM UTC
Other words for a sunset or evening piece
how we enwrap-per,
code our prayers,
write our music,
for the moments every eye
shares,
when sunset bids us bye
in a Glorioso
romantic contemplation
when auteurs and nature
bid us a colored scope for viewing
thru which we may see our
sweet dreams come from
within the heavens,
in one single
language
and weep with pleasure at this
blessed unification
~~~~~
While "serenade" is the direct counterpart, other terms and literary forms evoke the sunset and evening, including:
Nocturne: A musical piece inspired by the night, often romantic and contemplative.
Vesper: A term for evening prayers or a song sung in the evening.
Evening song: A general term for a song or poem composed for the evening.
Oct 19, 2025
Oct 19, 2025 at 10:03 AM UTC
silent night, holy night
free me from your brutal grip,
truthful grip, oh how I am falling
falling
falling
falling
falling
falling
to the wake of reality
time is a wave
pillow is depravity undeserved:
my head should rest in dreams alone
for races condemned to three hundred minutes of solitude do not have a second opportunity in past days
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I the stars are few tonight I Q. window window on the wall I I less for want of light I who's the weakest of them all? I
I than for having fled I A. see for yourself I
I the burden of being witnessed I Q. why can't you show me what I I i too would dim I want to see? I I if it meant no one I A. 0 I I could name my sorrow I Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q. I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
it shrouds me
this pale view of distances un-X-X-bridge-X-X-able
this nocturnal solo elegy ave falsus corpum
it brings me ever closer to death
my gentle repose
but do not pity me
even the darkening star burns
and the softest tremor in the chest
means i'm still reaching for something > 0
even if i call it sleep
so let me rest,
unmourned, remembered
for that dismal resilience;
bleak survival
through the depths of night
for one stanza longer
Jul 20, 2025
Jul 20, 2025 at 4:50 AM UTC
The shadows come at night
They make everything feel alright
Who hasn’t ever stopped to think
You can hide away and shrink
Into depths unknown
By yourself all alone
Time ceases to exist
Your own eternal bliss
Nothing seems quite the same
Something magical you can trace
Solidarity with the night
Like a blanket
Now it’s all ok
You never have to be afraid
Something i can see
A cosmic journey from the start
It tears apart your heart
Something different something new
—Timothy Charles Carter
Mar 5, 2025
Mar 5, 2025 at 10:26 AM UTC
*
*
asleep
and fall
777)
6
5
4
3
2
(1
i count them
(starry starry night)
through the night sky
(fly into heaven)
woolbirds fly high
Aug 8, 2024
Aug 8, 2024 at 11:34 PM UTC
Honeycombs of light
****** themselves into being
in metro fields.
Children cross the lush
to skip stones at the dead fence
as night assembles itself
into spaces and stars.
Day falls away like a skin,
beneath conquering belts of milk
that separate from a lidless emptiness.
Silver subway trains gleam
in their charcoal tunnels.
Apart from all of it
is a chalk morsel moon.
Sometimes you are
the thrown stone
sinking down to post
& sometimes you are
the star wheeling off tether.
Jan 12, 2021
Jan 12, 2021 at 5:42 PM UTC
late
in lamplight's hiss
I sat and watched the attic dust
dance under spotlights cast
by moonbeam
skylights
on a stage of memory
and forgetting
Sep 11, 2020
Sep 11, 2020 at 10:14 AM UTC
Dear Nocturne,
You have fallen upon us,
Soaring unlike angels;
Endless, countless lights
Taken far away so soon.
Alas, no shimmer of hope
Out there, but here;
I sense my own without
A doubt; you fall again.
Yet no call goes unanswered
As you strike again.
Pretty flowers, lovely sun,
golden petals soar away
With you.
Jul 20, 2019
Jul 20, 2019 at 9:37 AM UTC
At night-times like this
I use to put my finger on
the artery of silence
and listen to the cracks
between words and the unspoken,
for the blood drops are its pauses
speaking in the tongue
of slumbering stones,
keep on chanting
a song with a beck:
"live on love, live on love."
May 10, 2019
May 10, 2019 at 12:06 PM UTC
#(a travelogue)
He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts
A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
timeworn love seat,
rubbed smooth as
the crystalline waters
of half-moon lake
Lingering for a while ―
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
arousing the urgent
call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
on half-moon lake
The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails, and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows
He sat quietly ...
time out of mind ―
tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching them each again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was
Seeing their sparkly tracers
trail-out above the cattails,
from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
on half-moon lake
A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming
enchantingly with the grace
of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
slipping through
a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―
disappearing like a fleeting moment
waning deep aneath
a subtle silent wake.
When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...
but hearken !
… an interceding
long drawn out wail
echoed a feral ache
across the stillness,
breaking the silence ―
as the shadow reappeared;
his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
as black and white
as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon
Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake
harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
I am here in the hazy light of a new dawn
writing to you.
You and I here alone
is like floating in a soft piano nocturne.
Gliding over the keys with natural finesse
is a taste of heaven.
Here in this muted light
with you in mind
a privilege no less
than being in the majestic presence
of loving and friendly royalty.
Writing to you
from the inner reaches of my heart
is a journey
more precious
than the emerald landscape
I can see
to the far horizon
of this new day.
The freshness of this moment
basking in our love
is a tiny sprout
greeting blessed light
thrilled with the sticky twining
of its new life.
It is good being here
alive with you.
Written 7-19-18
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 10:41 AM UTC
I said it was not meant for me,
But what did I mean?
For any youth, any love,
Whose prey who might be,
On whom you’d lean,
In your semi-corseted skirt,
Or dressed full fig.,
Stalking into town,
Shocking men in wigs,
Luring them into false love,
As others had been?
Would you capture me,
Chaining my soul to your heart,
So I must carry on playing
At your command?
I see your dress under the piano,
And your boots and pantaloons;
The piano is not my voice,
Though you insist it is.
I shot a drunken man for you,
Which made me more your slave.
You woke urges I suppressed,
Too strong for one so frail.
With words you pushed me
But caused music to pour
From me as love did.
A storm of disapproval raged all round
Our Paris nest of love and art,
You came and went like a soldier, shielding us,
And at home you urged me on,
To impromptu inventions,
Yet causing us to depart.
Packed into a cabochon,
You shanghaied me,
Away to Majorca
And the wintry sea.
Your searing love and the island’s cold
Were too much for me,
And I escaped with my art.
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 8, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
.
*Solemn nocturne
accompanies my night
Invisible orchestra
serenading the moon
You will sing
the chorus in this twilight
But all had ended
in a verse sung too soon*
.
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 6:27 AM UTC
The moon gives us light but no heat.
The moon hears our secrets but doesn't tell.
The moon gives us comfort but at a distance.
The moon loves us all but it's only dark.
Sep 2, 2017
Sep 2, 2017 at 5:21 PM UTC
a dark night schlep
and parasitic flies make zombie bees;
this joy of flight in honey delight
why his orbit tilts wide that
never bona fide her legs
till it catches them niggling there
and thrive behind a seance in plight
as their mutation is austere
yet circumcise this oblate mission
with a meadowlark's songs of vamp.
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 9:32 AM UTC
How it hurts to know, to see
that I won't ever have the words flow, like you, through me.
My sentence structure, lacking
thoughts toss upon the sea, the sail we're tacking.
There is no passion to my words,
just novice, vice sent to up to the birds.
My strong desire, though, is meek
to dance with words until my hand grows weak.
Please be patient whilst I learn,
to write, to feel this wistful nocturne.
-t.s.
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 11:11 PM UTC
Stars sprinkle the inky night sky
Like crumbs of diamonds on a still, midnight ocean.
I am not afraid to be here, alone,
In the vastness of twilight.
For these few moments, time is as long
As the space between those stars,
And as empty, too.
The uncertainty that sunrise will follow.
As sure as the sun is destined to rise everyday,
When there's only darkness surrounding you,
Pierced slightly by the silvery glow of moonlight...
You're all alone and helpless.
You only have the vague hope that the sun will return.
And as I sit here now, star-gazer,
Faceless nomad on the damp grass;
I feel immortal, and I am afraid
That I will always be alone with the stars.
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 8:17 AM UTC
Picture a room with white walls, small-windowed.
Through the window, no moon shines like it should.
This view knows streetlights better than starlight,
in the tender dark of this April night,
but someone's still writing about their glow.
And I know her eyes are heavy with sleep.
Still she watches the silver twilight seep
toward the tall lamps-posts, like spilled earl gray.
She wishes like a dream that it would stay,
that she could stave twilight from its lilac fade.
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 5:15 PM UTC
Ocean waves have gently pulsed
in your ear, ever since
you walked out of the sea.
The moon, her shining face,
so far from home, holds your
hand and weeps in peace.
You prefer it that way,
standing alone, glad
the captain is going down
with his ship, in comfort.
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 1:08 PM UTC
Walks at
nocturnal times
in the light of lampposts
trough out the beautiful city
to chill.
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 5:04 PM UTC
my favorite movie
clueless
my favorite song
nocturne
and you would never see them through
and so you would never know me.
tonight I asked you
when you last saw me sober
and you couldn't give me an answer.
tonight, I told you
just how many bottles
of *** I go through
in a week.
that night that I cried
over you
is a continent and a month away
but it existed.
I listen to nocturne
and blues.
and I could've spent this night
alone on your sofa.
but instead I spend it alone
on my floor
because here
I play Chopin
for myself
and not for you.
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 6:51 AM UTC
your body, the drain plug,
that climactic days of a day
murky sweet strawberry milk water
ebbs and sways
around, surrounds, and surmounts you
Your body the dumping ground
for pretty poppy seeds
seep, steep
seeded somewhere deep
as
synthetic stinging metaphor rain
pours on your mistreated singing skin
spotted, dotted, synaptic rule
akin to lemon poppy seed muffin tops
your head- a top
spins round
and mimics
never-ending bath drain whirlpool
ambulances and ambivalences soundtrack
this nocturne
night of a morning
mourning already
my poor lost sister
a little less than intact
lost in her head
I'm loosing her
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she nods
and grumbles,
fumbles for words that aren't there
four words that aren't there
forward isn't there
because what do you say
about matters
when your high
and breathing last breaths overlapping
in humble showers
in heart crumbling nakedness
your faithlessness trapping
murky sweet strawberry milk waters.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 3:07 PM UTC