"nighthawks" poems
(an ekphrastic poem based on the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper)
Four
solemn faces,
doused in gold,
like moths to flame,
seek warmth from the cold.
Darkness leers, but harsh light shields
these lonely creatures from their feelings untold.
One
diner desolate,
a waiter old,
and three weary visitors
are portrayed. The scene unfolds.
Most eat under the sunlight, unlike
these nighthawks who flocked from their households.
Some
loneliness darkens
hearts like blindfolds;
nighthawks’ hearts aren’t exceptions.
The woman red and bold,
the man in shadows, and another
man with a cigarette in his hold
are
isolated together.
They are controlled
and defined by solitude.
They don’t belong. No mold
fits them. They only have a
diner, each other, and lonesome souls unconsoled.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 1:33 AM UTC
Hanging around the old cabaret,
where nighthawks steal glances
at the curators of tired eyes,
the walking dead take leave
of their senselessness
entering blurred reality
Someone calls for another round
shouting fire down his throat as
A dart nicks the narrow space between
two fates and falls to the floor
avoiding both,
leaving him in a rage
She pockets the change they left her
or forgot, while
laughs infuse the acrid smoke,
ricocheting into nothing
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 10:34 PM UTC
Where we live it is no desert for the rains still fall.
Where we live the cacti stand tall,
proud and green Men and Women
defending rocky slopes of heaven.
Where we live the bat flies with the nighthawks,
dog fights at twilight against hordes of insects.
The lizard and snake fear a Greater Roadrunner
who laughs at passing cars, for it shall outlive
The Petrol Race centuries forward.
The Sunrise seems like The Mountains'
live birth to a bright blazed star.
The Sunset bombs a horizon
filmed with faraway layers of dust.
The milk cloud of stars and cosmic debris.
The Moon rising, a pale beacon beyond The Mesquite.
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 4:04 PM UTC
Pandas are fluffy. Labradoodles are…
Bake the road, crush the world.
Richard Feynman, Freddie Mercury?
Can you be unique?
We are defined not by ourselves
but by the Television set
by the media
by our leaders
What the hell is this Orwellian nightmare?
Do we exist independently?
Individuality is discouraged
unless you have money
This postmodern splash
The drones of nighthawks, flapping by the shores
The shores of Calavera, of San Luis Obispo
If the mountains drifted out to sea
Let the toaster rule you.
Let the media.
Not like you can stop them.
Wheee! Ride, piggy, ride!
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 6:58 PM UTC
you are a lover of
the night
you see
what the day is
too shy to reveal
May 17, 2023
May 17, 2023 at 2:50 PM UTC
There is no dusk in this city
penetrated by the raging Potomac,
Night just crams itself in and
rapes the day dry -
lays her flat against the horizon.
Mothers and children run for covers
and put each other to sleep;
in a few hours
harlots and nighthawks will do the same.
Sweet Siren
You are this city
Petticoated and pretty,
Cunning and stunning
Winking and blinking
Red
Yellow
Green
eyes popping open like sunken headlights,
Ready for the night.
I hear your wailing
red-flashed and flaming
like an open heart,
piercing the black with it's plea.
I feel your pulse-pumping red corpuscles
thrusting me deep into
lusting for things forbidden and hidden
Somewhere inside this neon wonderland.
Sweet Siren,
Sing your teasing tunes for me
Deliver me from your shelters and streets,
Where infidels and angels
Fall at your feet.
Sweet Siren,
Deliver me to the
Trembling shelter of your sheets.
Liars and their lies
roam this concrete jungle
begging for love and razors
and other disposable items.
You go screaming passed them though,
determined to save at least one numb drunk ***
in some rain cleansed back alley of vices;
only to fool your own conscience
with the lithium laced smile of charity.
Sweet Siren
Quiet your angry shrill to a hush
The tarmac and taxis are tired of us
And your princes and saviors have fled this town.
Sweet Siren,
It's time for us to burn this city down
And leave the ashes
For the thieves and the clowns.
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 1:58 PM UTC
The Village was nearly swallowed by darkness,
Until I stumbled upon a fresh fluorescent light,
Emitting an eerie glow out of a subtle all-night diner.
Suddenly, eyeballs projected a noir-style movie.
This unique heaven lit a cemented pathway,
Which led toward nowhere but American desolation.
Exploration of blank stores was not an option;
A disconnected joint across the open street was obvious.
The cornered beacon called to me as if dreams lived,
Though the seamless wedge of glass deflected observation,
Onto the viewer I represented, isolated from the anonymous.
Lungs were not interested in Phillies, only graveyard shift.
The scene held four strangers shut in spacious congregation.
The figures filled in the white void with physical presence,
While each owl was remotely lost in their own thoughts.
Was it the tragedy that occurred at Pearl Harbor,
Possibly the hopelessness World War II offered?
Could it have been the disappearance of happy innocence in ’42?
Hopper alone can probably discover a whole to the loss of words.
Somehow the constructed simplicity was overwhelming:
When late night minds meet morosity yet still produces beauty.
Subjected into one, the loneliness of a large city can exist too.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 2:50 AM UTC
And there it was-
I'll tell you all the truth you ask of me-
Let all of my hesitation- reservations- love-
Pass by unnoticed- unheeded- misheard-
Be it strange- or be it my aptitude towards the unholy,
Whether the soft touch of the willow-fed irises-
Or the half-life glare of nighthawks, posed aloof and aloft-
In full conscious awareness of their physicalities-
With willful composure- and heads turned just so.
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
we always think about what we did with our lives
and what did it get us.
for me I gained nothing more than musings at 3am
in a forgotten spot in a forgotten town.
I was always welcomed with the smell of stale coffee that hadn’t been brewed fresh since lunch merely ten hours before.
It wasn’t a friendly welcome but it was a welcoming.
here, in this small lit up space,
I found myself disappear into something else
No longer was I was person in a cubicle, answering phones,
submitting numbers into a tired system.
I was someone who although couldn’t beat insomnia,
I made it apart of my life.
I would learn about others
and mold myself from my own clay into something new.
I made it a point to learn from my tired mind and thoughts,
I made sure I made not sleeping soundly through the night worth it.
It was always somber; just a tear stained cheek away from being devastating;
I found my home here
in the lit up shop on the corner of Sullivan and Orchard;
Where I would always be greeted by the smell of stale coffee that hadn’t been brewed fresh since lunch merely ten hours before.
Feb 26, 2019
Feb 26, 2019 at 4:46 PM UTC
This morning, between two branches of a tree
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.
I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came
Back as they do about this time each year,
Grey squadrons with the slashes white on wings
Cruising for bugs beneath the bellied cloud.
Now soon the monarchs will be drifting south,
And then the geese will go, and then one day
The little garden birds will not be here.
See how many leaves already have
Withered and turned; a few have fallen, too.
Change is continuous on the seamless web,
Yet moments come like this one, when you feel
Upon your heart a signal to attend
The definite announcement of an end
Where one thing ceases and another starts;
When like the spider waiting on the web
You know the intricate dependencies
Spreading in secret through the fabric vast
Of heaven and earth, sending their messages
Ciphered in chemistry to all the kinds,
The whisper down the bloodstream: it is time.
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 9:19 AM UTC
It all started with an urge to go to the movie theater
PTA's "The Master"
It was a 35 minute walk to the nearest cinema in Brooklyn
Nighthawks is what it was called
1:10pm, 4:10pm, 6:10pm, 10:10pm, the show times
Since I woke up at 12:45am, 1:10pm was out of the question
4:10pm seemed plausible but when the clock rolled around I was still puttering around the house
I could putter no more by 6:00pm and flew the cooped up den
The air, brisk and crisp
Time fell back
Women's heels clap the sidewalk in applause
All for the autumn on a Sunday frozen in time
I arrive, show sold out
I walk across the Williamsburg bridge, why not?
First theater in Manhattan I see turned out to be live art
So I turned out and left
Manhattans alive while Brooklyn slumbers
I dart down Clinton St toward the old Avenues
November, I could go without the cold weather, but I love the seasons
Pumpkin lattes **** my wallet dry like lesions
Soon I'm walking down 2nd Av, feeling familiar with my surroundings
Funny, feeling familiar, in a city I thought I'd never know, (you'll never know if you don't go)
Got some dollar pizza on St Marks
Followed by a dollar falafel, which tasted awful, (now I know why it was a dollar)
I walked in circles around Union Square, in union with everyone there
Happy that my feet were to the street, where they belong
Freezing, frozen, frigid, shakin' in my britches
Wrapped around my neck a borrowed scarf
Bumping into people, "I'd like to get by now", like Garth
(keep moving, you'll find what you want to find)
In big bright neon light at Village Cinema
"The Master"
(In 70mm)
Huh, 70mm, "Cool", I thought
The theater, empty as a loners funeral
I was the only one there, red velvet lined seats
I missed Halloween
Maybe this is my treat
The world is beautiful
This city is mine,
All I had to do
Was leave my old one behind
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 2:40 PM UTC
4:11 am - The nighthawks are starting to resemble pigeons.
Train station is deserted.
An employee checks the bins as the tunnel fills with the ringing of a distant bell, heralding the arrival of the morning train.
42 minutes till my train.
I can smell the acrid fumes of the Ferny Grove train.
The behemoth pulls away-
empty.
At least I'm not existential anymore.
There is an installation of a coffin made from old bits of railroad,
"Not everyone makes it across the tracks"
This reminder of mortality is strangely fitting in a place of transit.
The true face of memento mori is shown.
Remember that you too will die, and everything will come to pass.
It's times like this that make me wish 'The Sound of Silence" was never written.
For its perfection in this moment comes as a burst of pure divine bliss.
The kind you wish would never fade away. But inevitably does.
And all we are left with is a memory of that bliss,
everytime we hear the song (after the first time).
As if we are recalling the curves of an old lover from the shadow of yesterdays gone.
Dancing beneath our fingertips, always out of reach.
Memory is never as divine as the moment that burnt it in.
----
4:29 am - It was ephemeral.
The trainyard announcer has a cultured voice.
----
4:41 am - I fear the muse has left me, beauty fled.
DEAR GOD - PLEASE LET THERE BE A CAB AT THE STATION FOR ME.
Selection 11 gave me the water i desired.
11 minutes till the train.
D.O.B. 11/2
Aquarius, 11th sign of the Zodiac.
Will I see the dawn rise from the train?
There is no light at the end of the tunnel from where I sit.
Inexplicably: I recall the cool river air that bathed us as we lay naked in your apartment,
the smell of cigarettes on our skin, the evening peppered with
scurrying, fighting possums
that danced upon your balcony.
I recall being inside you.
(Then I imagined you being eaten out
by a woman
her lips inside yours,
her curled tongue
inside your hot, bald
golden ****
And I came.
Warm and glorious
my children of pleasure
caught in a latex coffin.
Your heaves of pleasure pushing against my chest
with the rhythm of waves.
----
4:46 am - On the train.
Fluorescent lighting is the devil.
Everything is garish yellow.
We pull up to the station near where you lived.
Your blue rose lives in a Chinese vase
and no longer smells
of Marlene Dietrich.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
*A lonely scene
By Edward Hopper
Bright light and
Clear glass..
Our perspective is
Outside in..
We see enclosed
In darkened frame
Lingering characters
Seated alone in
Clarity and precision
Cold and forlorn..
It's the polarity
Light and shadow
Before they find
The connection
of These...*
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 10:18 PM UTC
3 am in a diner inside of Nowhere
we gather like the dead sipping coffee.
We're lost souls. We love bright light
flickering florescent and neon spelling
our message to the dark night. We are
nighthawks who travel your dreams.
Oct 18, 2021
Oct 18, 2021 at 10:55 PM UTC
nighthawks devouring prey
know nothing of judgment day
envy them
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 4:15 PM UTC
Dusk.
The black of undermaintained asphalt
in a ribbon rolling over
the volcanic hills,
the yellow of the centerline
flashing into view and passing beneath
in a rhythm,
like a heartbeat.
Jackrabbit on the shoulder
***** his head and springs
away from something in his imagination,
following the yellow dashes
in an awkward gait,
a single bold jump
followed by twenty yards of
dead sprint.
Not eight feet overhead
a pair of nighthawks bob and flutter
erratically
but following one another in
pursuit
of something I cannot see.
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 2:44 AM UTC
The searing pain inside my brain
makes me want to right out a poem.
She moved in so close I could
feel the electricity there within .
The words would fail me
like a lovers lament will do .
The kisses were as crispy
as the laptop from which they flew .
And everyone knew you were
looking through the bay window
of your time .
The paperboy delivered
much more than my morning news .
And Cathy moved to New Orleans
with Danny as it was
her will to choose .
And the nighthawks few in the lights
it was a sight to see .
Ken kept slinging beers
while he dreamed of dreams
that would never be .
Still I see it all in the window of my pane .
I sometimes dream of Judy
and the reasons we could never be .
There's a Red Mountain resting underneath
the apartment holding me .
It was up hill , downhill ,
and it was unreasonable
so it seemed .
Anytime you had complaints
they would surely scream .
I see it all now through
the windowpain
of my mind .
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 1:24 AM UTC
In the brisk night air of the city,
The crowd in the bar and the music
Spill out into the street like stale beer.
Sharing drinks and discussions
With Swedes and rock n' rollers,
Surprisingly found delightful.
No lack of slumber will slow us,
The nighthawks flying close over
The gulls swimming in the grimy river,
And on a second stolen glance,
Sometimes the world is so small,
So pleasurable, so far and so good.
-Jamie F. Nugent
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 3:20 PM UTC
1974
was a year
of warm summer fun
The nighthawks flew
in the lights
of darkness
And trees crashed
in warm
winter storms
And love was
a kiss
upon a breast
And touch upon
willing fingertips
And life was a joy
to possess
And a joy
to profess
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 1:44 AM UTC
a glimpse of
what might have been:
the candle
and the blow
pacing the floor
mind filled with nighthawks
stomach with bitter pills
snow on the window sill
--the long winter
of our love
it comes out of the blue
like dead reckoning
thoughts of us
unfinished
a hand withdrawn
the final wager on goodbye
Oct 12, 2020
Oct 12, 2020 at 11:24 AM UTC
Her voice is flute-song upon a wind
Known both in tall, still trees and coastal gales.
Every pleasing sound,
If of nighthawks or of August rains,
Gathers in breaths, both in and out,
In notes forbidden to all others.
A waving blade of grass, or a tumbling leaf
Will half-obscure the slight nothings
That escape upon her tender breath,
Or punctuate a moment’s surprise.
Illustration of a serene purity and tenderness
That dwells sweetly within.
Too upon those lips,
Escaping from tender cheeks softly,
Quickly appearing, yet sparse,
Between those pillars of her smile,
That restrains poorly mirth and glow,
A name comes quickly,
And delivers opulent wealth and pleasure
To be my own.
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
dark house, yellow light
voices, plates clattering
nighthawks fly silent
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 1:11 AM UTC
And still late at night,
When I'm waiting for the bugs to bite
I still look for the word
That described how it felt to be kissing your world
I scrape through everything
So I name it after everyone
Who had ever let me down
And I still find it in myself
To pretend not to frown
To hope that someday someone will
Love me as much as they love being loved by me
But it just seems
Like I am too much
And at the same time,
Not enough.
All I know is
I'm tired of the nighthawks
Hunting me down
Stopping me from shutting my eyes
— 12:37
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
The sun's shone and gone
Nighthawks have flown
Fireflies switch off and on
As night sings it's song
I'm gonna run free tonight
Running free with twilight
I'm running free tonight
Gonna get my delight
Moths all around the street lamp
Frogs screaming out of sight
Black cat dashes by
Oh ! My oh my !
I gonna run free tonight
Without the moonlight
Running , Running , Running
So free tonight
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 8:45 PM UTC