That Peril of the Night

That peril of the night


The peril of the night,
This peril of the night,
Was magnified by his awful self reliance.
Somewhere to seek the flight,
Somewhere to rule the plight.
He never knew the truth of which he came.

And so he stumbled there,
That spot beneath his feet,
That shaggy grass waving
To and fro
To and fro
To and fro.
How much he loathed that grass.
That sky above his head, was bluer than that time,
That time he drank the sea.
How his lungs were short to be.
Never to be again.

How he got here, he did not know.
Why was he here, the time would only show.
And that peril of the night,
Would always return.

Thirst did not compromise,
Hunger, neither too.
But there was something deep inside,
That screamed
A tune.
A tune that was his only hope to see some other land,
This plain was always there,
Beneath his feet.
The terror of the day.

A foot took a step,
And so did the other,
And once more again,
And once more again.
There was no direction,
No sign to point,
Besides the sun,
And that peril of the night.
That he so hid from.
Wondering why,
Why
Why
Why
To be here.
Life was more to this,
This plain.
The plain.
The veldt,
Was too much.

His mind was breaking across the space that took up his whole life the plain was filling his whole brain that was leaking dreams over the dry grass and the dry grass that was being so dead to the man who was spilling his heart over the grass and the grass did nothing it laughed the grass did and it was funny and so the man laughed and sang and felltothegrassandhisheadwasgapingfreeandhecouldnothelptolaughtolaughtolaugh.
Because it was so funny.
He laughed for days and days and days and days and days and days,
But no nights.

Then something cold and damp emerged into his face
And into his face sprouted water
From a stream
From a distance.
He slurped up the liquid
Into his face.
It was merely water.
But it tasted so strange,
All of the life of humanity could not overcome that taste that wasn't life.
Why drink water, when it is not of use.
It was a knife to his heart and he bellowed a cry
That struck only his ears and he
Lurched to the Earth,
Sobbing.

He picked up his self from the Earth
And stared down to the blue.
He saw his face,
Anditwaslaughingathimlaughingjustlaughingandsowashe.
It was funny.
Joyous suns you laugh at thee
Hahahahahaha
At the misery
Because it is funny.

That peril of the night
Came that night
And saw the man
And the man saw the peril,
The flock of bison,
Running at him
Run
Run
Run
Run
Run......
Faster along the way.
Sure to rule the night!
And the poor man hid away.
From the peril he hid.
That herd of bison like a flock.

After walking much during the day,
He fell to the ground and leaned back,
And a tree leaned back.
He lurched up and stared at that tree.
After some thought he took a foothold in it's bark,
The steps were in perfect harmony.
He emerged into the thick green of the plant
And had a look around
And came back down
And that tree was only a blade
Of grass.
He wondered if it was always a blade of grass,
And figured so.
And continued walking.

Talking to himself only made him tired
Or, that was what he remembered it used to do,
Now, he couldn't seem to get tired.
But he talked to himself anyway.

Do you know where you are?

Do you know where you are?

Certainly, no.

I know where I am.

Where are you?

I...forgot.

Well...I hope you figure that out.

You too.

And so these ramblings continued
For days on end.
But then a night came.
And the peril of the night
Returned
Again.

The man did not want to hide,
He wanted home,
And a place to be
Be besides
Here.

And that herd charged at him with the rage of a devil.
He did not want to move, but knew it would be good
To move.
He let them come
Run
Run
Run
Run
Run
Then he rose onto a back of a beast and rode away
Into somewhere
Into daytime
Into life
Into peace
Into hope
Into happiness.
And he kept on riding,
The wind against his hair.

He knew not where he was going,
And, in fact, he didn't care.

Spoiler

Don't worry about understanding it. I know it doesn't make sense. I just want to see how others interpret the moral.

This... makes my muscles bunch, dude. I'm sorry, dude, as this could be very well-written, but it's so muddled and chopping-blocked. It makes me want to eat every book on writing grammar, etiquette , style, and poetry I've ever read. I mean, yeah, the grammar is something one can typically overlook in poetry, but it can only go so far. Also, you were bringing in Elizabethian words that did not need to be brought in. Those words should stay back in a time frame when those who read them actually know what they are getting into. Honestly, I do like the whole idea here, I'm just not a fan--at all--of how it was written. I would've liked the whole repetition thing you had going on, had it not been that you didn't follow the rules of repetition: Forms of repetition are to be repeated in like manners. As in, when you put:
"Run
Run
Run
Run
Run..."
it only needed three, as you had with the other sequences of repetition.

I'm very sorry for coming off as mean in this review, as I'm normally better at explaining ways of making things I dislike better or more understandable, but I guess after reading your last little note there, I just kind of went off. I will, however, tell what I think of the moral:

1.) Cocaine is one helluva drug.

2.) Confusion is one's own true enemy and fear until one faces it, for better or worse, and rides it out.

Don't be angry at me, or at least don't put all your energy into being angry at me. If you're upset with me, then put it into your work. Anger is a strong emotion, and directed anger is accurate, at times.

The peril of the night,
This peril of the night,
Was magnified by his awful self reliance.
This is a full sentence, so you don't need to capitalize 'This' unless you mean to name the night as a specific thing, and to emphasize this. You do this multiple times, so, make sure you read through and really mean to capitalize the words you do.
Very often, young writers will capitalize the first letter of every line. Though it may look nice and formal, you should capitalize fore literary effect, not visual. Unless, of course, you are writing in the sub-genre 'Visual Poetry", but you are obviously not, lol. Literary reasons can include the three main ones, at least in my mind, at the beginning of a sentence, to address a specific person, place or thing, and to emphasize something that is normally lower case, to draw attention to it and give it more meaning in the context of your writing. Other reasons may exist, but if you meant one of those, you fail to convey that clearly enough to the point in which I could draw that as a conclusion.

To and fro
To and fro
To and fro.
How much he loathed that grass.
That sky above his head, was bluer than that time,
In the fashion you type 'To and Fro', implies the slow passing of time. If that is intended, then you need to address the 'time factor' of the rest of your writing. Ask yourself, does the rest of this writing show the passing of time in the way you would like? With three words a line AND repeated, shows that it is extremely slow, and then your next lines merrily return back to ten words a line, each a new and multi-syllable word. That implies quick passing of time, especially with many words in one line. Be careful with your intentions with line breaks, especially when the number of them are unstructured. Also, when considering this, read through the whole piece, because you do do this the whole poem.

That time he drank the sea.
How his lungs were short to be.
Never to be again.
Compare the punctuation of these sentences with the rest of your piece. You have a certain structure manifesting itself: part of a thought,
part of a thought,
completion of thought.
Is the structure, but then suddenly you have:
a thought.
a thought.
a thought.
Unless you really want to give these lines the shortness and force with which they read, the periods weigh them down heavier then you may like them to.

A foot took a step,
And so did the other,
And once more again,
And once more again.
There was no direction,
I like this part

Life was more to this,
A funny way to word the cliche' "There is more to life than this", funny to the point it is uncomfortable to read. You may want to reword that one. Or not. What ever, lol.

"His mind was breaking across[...] days and days and days."
Sudden, sudden change in the style. You're piece has a lot of implications of time passing, so this part comes suddenly, and though the effect is strong, I think it takes away from the lucidity of the over all speech. Having your previous style and this messy, unbroken chain of thoughts juxtaposed makes only for detraction from both.

Lurched to the Earth,
Sobbing.

He picked up his self from the Earth
Repeating 'Earth' is unnecessary. You can simply say "he picked himself up" and still convey the idea, just less wordy a fashion in doing so.

Running at him
Run
Run
Run
Run
Run......
You repeat the entire thought every other time you do the repeat/line break effect. You should consider replacing "run" with "running" to read the same as the other times you repeat.

The tree turning into a blade of grass was written very well, I like the dreaminess of it, again, the lucidity of it.

When you do rhyme, it is so sudden and out of character with the rest of the poem, it is drained of the strength it has when read by itself.

Returns/Paragraph breaks
Your paragraph breaks are random and make your piece look very unclean.

I do like your piece, just gave a bunch of suggestions for improvement
The dreaminess and the way it flows, the journey of a man, on his way to nowhere. I like the topic, the imagery, but you can improve on your diction. It is limited, but by reading more that can be helped.