Young Writers Society

The Four Species of the Ungodly Hours of the Night


sharing is an abomination of the self,
said the righteous poof.
tantamount to slapping your name
on a name tag
in a room full of mooch-pukes
and exploitation clubs.
you waltz around,
they open up the dance floor
to the angry mob with rotten fruit.

the playwright poses that
dreaming is a simpleton’s unpremeditated contention,
between the way could-be things and the way are things.
the churning, see, churns at the bottom,
while the surface is nothing but frill and fancy.
hence, the unpremeditated.

oh, close thine chicken-portals!
cries the squalor-languishing sluggard.
let us retire into the musty closet of sleep
while we yet have the time.
the morning is nigh,
and the now is night,
therefore call off thine rabid thoughts,
and let the mind collapse in pitiful exhaustion.

thoughts? wonders the orphan child.
where was I last when I last had a thought?

Hi! So, I'm not sure what to make of your poem, here. Your word choice and rhythm sporadic at best, and makes an attempt to understand or relate to this poem difficult.

Your title suggests four facets to the night, but I'm having trouble picking them out - you do reference the idea of the night, but I'm not entirely sure how to relate what you have to the idea of "ungodly hours of the night."

I have no idea why you're using "thine" in your last stanza. I can't remember correct usage of the term, right now either, but regardless, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. It distracts me as a reader - enough that it took a second reading to register "chicken portals" which I don't understand, either.

You have some sentence structures that make reading confusing, too - like this line, "between the way could-be things and the way are things." Going against conventional structure is ok, but not so much when it hinders the poem, which I think it does here. I had to rearrange that in my head to make it work, "the way things could be and the way things are."

Anyway, I think the images and ideas provoked by your title are awesome, and I would like to see the rest of your poem provoke the same, rather than the confusion I'm getting currently.