Your screams mean nothing,
To one so cold.

They only carry on the wind.
Along with your dying soul.

We perish within the fire,
The crimson evergloom.
Nocturnal awaits,
Ready to curse your soul.

Forever a Raven,
Inside the black forest.

A Dancing fever
spreads across
Deutschland from
ancient Roman City
Aachen

to far away
Madagascar where
proto-people
live, waking to morning
whooping calls
and fading habitat.

We can still find
preserved Lemurs
in Duke hospitals
and open zoo
for robust ring-tailed,
or dark cells
for the nocturnals.

Would they dance
too with us, in mass
hysteria,
irrational exuberance,
and ergot
poisoning if
only later converting
to a Science
belief-system new?

My summer sweats bloom from a grass rag,
Scratch another hardly blasting out a calibrate,
Can I break, strap out hacker doozy bluemoors,
Caught from an out sound, an out frowned
Blackening the coffin sweet cough lubricate,
Shackle high tops on pipe dream loft shakers,
Clover feelers, four hitter on lucky seven collar,
Depth sin protector, **** I ain't wrath looter,
Nor do poppa sizes on some puke lips locker,
Key switch for gates hellish donor, back loner,
Course you see, I seek seep suckled *****,
Not some subtle soul (gap in skirt) poker,
Forever reaching lines, bust knuckle lifters,
Cracked rage like Nile is flooding wealths curlers,
Jewel duplicate for ruby cuts on roofless lust,
Symbolise another and I'll grabble force an honour,
Sober up soppy crotch rummage coper,
Scan cell prison ament Scholar's "repent!"
Mace battle X axel swop blunt round passel,
Cost more on pepper rubber rock relation,
Patient prep operation, cramp dilation,
Dial engage **** sudden blocked injection.
Cast nocturnals ominous above monuments,
Men fall like weak's race for joy's division,
Attend pro's vision, pure as skies probations,
Pack pampers protection tracks premonition,
Flat lines before lap times, clenching half rhymes,
Hop hotter than blues croft in dusks knots,

The sun is risen above the summit of a mountain- a Dwala-
Beaming, chasing darkness away;
Rejuvenating the veld as the dew shimmers,
Pasture assumes its deep brown lustre
As if trying to blend with the golden sun’s rays;
The Dwala – where it had momentarily perched-
Has slowly set it free for its westerly journey

My Tropical Savannah is a beauty:
Deep brown pasture in summer, clustered bushes, umbrella trees
Irregular footpaths run across its plains,
I assume one of them leads to you,
But as I trace them, they shy away at a distant horizon,
As if the sky is eating them up

The sun brings a light breeze mid-flight,
It blows softly on my quill,
Making a melody with the fur;
Whistling a song on the brim of my inkwell

On one footpath, I spot two love birds coming from the well,
The damsel is balancing an earthen calabash on her head;
My lips crease into a marvel-smile at their chatter and carefree laughter
I am surprised at myself for sharing their moment of bliss,
But then, it is always easy to share happiness.

Bliss is…abstract,
As the beauty and radiance of our sun

But the burden of sadness is…concrete,
Something I can share with you,
Only after I trace these footpaths beyond the horizon


The dying sun perches on a faraway ridge like an alter offering
Its deep brown rays permeate the foliage.
By and by, colours fade away with darkness.

The veld now looks old and beaten, almost gothic,
The sun is gone, leaving a trace of a blue-brown spectrum;
I hope it has come to you my dear,
With the same happiness it brings me
*

Darkness sets in.

Though my sentiments are hurt at the thought of having to close my inkwell,
I love the sweet calmness reigning in harmony with the sound of nocturnals,
Besides, seeing another beautiful sunrise is enough consolation.

When my day's drama
Is over,
I pull down blinds
As my closing curtain.
House lights flood
The frozen sky;
The moon spotlights
Nocturnals.
An analogue of sound begins
Its cacophonous chorus.
My ears *****
Cat-like
To the clicking metal stove;
Household motors
Hum in harmony.
My blankets shiver
Against the outside swirls.
The stairs, relieved of the day's weight,
Give rise,
And I imagine my ancient mother
Stepping lightly,
But not enough.
Hallway floorboards
Give her away;
Mouse-like hinges
Swing to a sliver of light
That lands on my lids,
The projection screen
Of memory
With the soundtrack,
*Lullaby of Night Sounds.

Why me!

I watched the sun go down
anxious and with a frown
I live my life on the street
doors and alleyways are where I sleep

I watch the nocturnals run about
I am scared I become their prey
always awake salty tears I weep
I feel abandoned and ask, why me

I am lonely forgotten too
no family or friends, just me
I will arise to face the day
In this life there is no other way.

©andrewpenman2011

for muna

my dear one, I have learnt this;
that even hills crumble
and a path surfaces
where once there was no way;
it is called a miracle

do you know that life
is in two shades of paradoxes
every event carries a parallel lesson,
every shadow is cast by an adjacent light,
that these pains you feel
are a consequence of the advent of healing,

in the evenings when the setting sun casts silhouettes
upon our views,
it is the knowledge from within
that assures us of our intact wonders,
that we are more than we seem

we are lanterns
the light in us only needs the oil of belief to glow..

you are on a journey,
you may seem discorded,
everything may seem like an entropy,
you may seem to have lost your grip,
you may be lost,
everything may seem so dark now,
but remember your light,
the one that lives in you,
remember belief is the axe that breaks the dormancy of it,

darling,
breathe and believe
and let the seed of your light germinate
into the dawn of discoveries,
for nothing is hidden from the eyes of light,

for when you become light,
all that you seek shall come
rushing to you like nocturnals.

Slowly the lights go down
the skies take the bluish hue,
the day is beautiful
but the night is true,
the ones who love its calm
nocturnals are at peace.
Once again.

The days, just going past
Everyday time races fast
All brush me off from sides
Within my own fear, I hide
Each step seems weaker
For I am a time seeker
As I try to reach the flowing lights
My vision blurs and I lose my sight
I recover slowly to stable my vision
My mind is locked as it resides in its prison
All I see is the nocturnals creatures in prey
The colors of nature has turned to grey
I rub my eyes to get back the color spectrum
In vain, my ears beat the deafing sounds of drum
My heart is alive, beating
But my brain and vision is cheating
My frame is almost afall apart structure
Breath! Breath! till I capture
The flowing lights
Which I seem to chase on every nights
No! I am not insane
But I also don't feel sane
I am a victim of social wrath
All torn and weak, almost walking to my death...


©sim

i have been having longer
conversations
with Silence

not lovers but we
will share the same bed
she will slip under the blanket
claims in the darkness her own pace
will talk while the moon outside
walks naked waiting for her lover
while stars burn their strange fires
the nocturnals with their nocturnes

even now, she is
a downward spiral vine
over my shoulder slithering
to my naked chest
that wears the cold like a cloak
until her kisses traces
the murmurs of my heart

she tells me i am alive
and so i smile before
she reminds me of what it means
to die.

Fresh concrete going
off is warm underfoot.

Nocturnals love it, why
it is called a Cat Walk.

My apartment has too many candles, so that’s the right amount.
You could sleep through the apocalypse and arise refreshed
and peckish. And you’ll just know where the muffins are.
My terrarium has a name made out of teak and jade.
Several worlds abide where I hang my nocturnals
and I’m lousy with stars in a batch of dark
the size of the Mind.

as I reflect i deflect and wonder where the arrow went, that pestered me.
i speak for the trees like a Lorax on a ******, but with fine penmanship
and quaint masteries. i learn the language of moss
by twilight and beg aeons for an hour
of Clarity… stumbling to Port
as I aright my Ship upon a proper Maelstrom
as viscose as a black diamond
on a candle’s
mind.

Step outside the wires
Some winter morning,
With your wool coat and hat,
Before the world has wakened,
When and where walnut shells,
Discarded by the clever nocturnals,
Dot the snowy sidewalk,
Along with occasional ****,
Small carcasses and cigarette filters.
Watch your breath and listen
To the city--small town, really--
As it sleeps.  The medicated night
Has disappeared, into the meditation
Of streetlamps and the few remaining stars.
Having found this place, decisions remain.
You can strip down everything outside you,
Make snow angels in the neighbor's
Yard--imagine her surprise should she
Awaken--and then compose these lines,
In what remains of darkness of the sky.