At Midnight [Poetry]

1.

Night's shutters drawn

scratch, scratch, scratch

demanding entry.

She will not move until the dawn.

She is the carpenter who carved out rivers.

She is the fire leaping up from the hearth

to run into the street

shouting an alarm about itself

2.

The monsters in our hearts

pour forth from our mouths

to devour us

with flame and fury,

all desperate with gold and hate,

an industry of rage

in foundries that burn

red and molten,

day and night

3.

Corpses wallow like bloated fish

in the river.

The shirt that covered our nakedness

is torn.

The schedule runs against us.

We are witness to the unfathomable

the unspeakable

4.

And what begins here

is unutterably beautiful,

the hills themselves

crying out for liberty,

the hopes of we slight creatures

still littering these streets,

still dwelling in those houses

we abandoned, the mansions

of desire.

We failed ourselves, only,

and the future is not yet lost

for those who must come after us.

---

Philip Kane

Philip Kane is an award-winning poet, author, storyteller and artist, living in the south-eastern corner of England. He is an “Old Craft” practitioner, a supporter of Anti-Capitalist Resistance, and a founding member of the London Surrealist Group. Philip's work has been published and exhibited across Europe, in the Middle East and in the USA. He is a contributor to The Gorgon's Guide to Magical Resistance (Revelore Press, 2022).