Poetry Forum

The Night.

Hear the night.
Black as a sloeberry, bruised like an eye.
Deep as ink blooming on damp paper.
Listen you can hear it breathe
soft as moleskin, savage as teeth.

Here the night,
blackens the dusty corners
pulsing life and death.
Creatures hunt and bite, devour and
sleep in feather bedded bliss.

Great stuff, sneaks.

This makes me want to sleep outside.

Only nit:

Deep as ink blooming on damp paper

Ink in damp paper is surely very shallow? Yes, I realise you might mean the colour.

blackens the dusty corners

That's a corker! Very nicely written.

Ciào for niào.

- Neil

I like it; but the 1st verse begins by urging us to hear the night but then talks little if at all about it's sound(s); the 2nd verse seems to focus on geography using the word "here" the night and i liked the 2nd verse more; it was tight and kept on track; the 1st verse perhaps wandered from its opening amibit?

I am slightly worried about S1 l5 here ....why "savage teeth"?

The world everyday turns away from the sun......

D x

Hmm
I'm thinking that S2 is not about wildlife, because of "feather-bedded bliss" .
Is it about the top dogs in the food chain?

Nice one
Geoff

Sorry, sneaker, I’m afraid this one didn’t quite do it for me. I liked the idea of having 2 stanzas which compare different aspects of the night, but (as brahms has also pointed out) the content of neither stanza seems to reflect the implications of the first line – in S1 you say “hear” then follow with essentially visual/tactile images. Another weak point for me is the images themselves, which seem off the money to my ear. I did like the idea of ink blooming on damp paper, but why should it, necessarily, be deep? Suppose it was yellow ink. Just couldn’t see it. It might work as “Like black/deep/dark ink blooming..etc). Or the bruised thing. Eyes aren’t always bruised – perhaps “like a bruised eye” would be better – but then, are bruised eyes especially like the dark nights you’re (I think) trying to describe. I wouldn’t have said so.

There’s other things, too. Sorry to sound negative – just my view. I’ve certainly liked other pieces from you.
All the best
peter

I'm with Brahms here. When you say "Hear the Night", you should have given us some of the sounds. Anyway,a fine piece.Enjoyed.

sneaks

I think this can be made to work. You present a challenge to the reader, which is to "hear" in colours and of course the dark black images are the colour of silence. I think to be truly effective in this way you need to stick to the colours of the first 3 lines of s1 because after that you do introduce sound and touch so dilute your method.

I think what you could do is introduce these in s2.

cheers

elph

i enjoyed your poem, the practices of night come through to me,

Sneaker, I really loved your opening, first 3 lines in S1 are tops for me, very descriptive.
Overall highly enjoyed,thanks.

BinB.