Hammer of Night

in the length of daylight's strip territories long and grey downward through the valley lie the shards of lighted gloom light has fallen but it cannot grip the pastures and its shores grow blue the sun is leaving me here the foam of dark waves on the soil run toward the pink sky for there are deep pools here where founts of cold reside light has fallen waist-deep in the pasture and against my burning legs brushes the first smooth black fish

Submitted by Pestilence — Apr 26, 2025

holes in the cloth seeds and grain fall from my sides in the gloom my eyes are black stones but how they yawn for light when silence grips its knuckles white i hear gasping all around nobody finds his treasure safe in this stillness the wider field where a carcass glows the wider field is darker than the sky on the wide crystal chandelier with its jewels hanging upwards toward the air each one a world i do not spoil a crushing beast with pity's stare will charge at me until i am found

my moving form makes ugly knots in the wind many long fingers bent in pain the meadow, slick and sewn with frost, ruined as my footsteps crush webs into the marble i curse myself and the warm steam curls the moon's gaze is broken as i pass and my shadow starves the moss of light a sharp branch scrapes my cheek pierced and stunned i frailly ask was debt repaid? slowly i am spurned the branch had snapped in the clearing light is low and lower near the sulking brush i lay down my things i would bleed into the earth if it would not break the silence i would enter the ground if it would not make it warm

Submitted by Cyberwaste — Apr 26, 2025

you realize your hands are white your life was spent in an effort to keep ice from your face you are sinking with the moon it will go and you will stay enough lay down no branches bleed enough you realize your hands are white bells in the woods who is ringing them now? seasons will find you enough lay down no branches bleed enough

as the hammer of night fell i went down the hill where the forest cleared to see it touch the snow like a barrel i strained to see the shape it moaned but would not be seen when the light was gone i went to where it had struck a pit of ice had sunken footholds smoothed from the walls a hole aimed up like a black pupil too deep to see with blue rippled walls the air slid down where the hammer of night fell i lit a fire and felt the dusting snow beside me the flakes slid in i fell asleep by the pit of ice soon i was climbing steps in a garden with the smell of wet mud toward a bull with no eyes

Submitted by The Void — Apr 26, 2025

on a day when the grey sky hangs like the space between two boats the cabin fills with smoke my fire breathes and spits as pines with lifted nets stand cemetery solid in the snow i never knew a word for this the terror of the day the cabin creaks and moans the heart is in the air from unseen holes, the flies

Submitted by SerpentEve — Apr 26, 2025