Darkness in the Night
by Emily Ginsburg
Darkness in the night
Darkness, choking the lungs and soul
Like the toxic breath of vile monsters
Silver moon glowing in the night
Silver moon, clouded by the ashes of human beings
And the barbed wire hatred of man
Stars in the nightCold in the night
Stars; blue, gold, and mocking
Toppling skyscrapers of faith
Cold that lives in the human heart
Freezing the blood, limiting the mind
Prayers in the nightScreams in the night
Prayers to a murdered god
Kaddish in the anticipation of death
Screams, the maniac prophecy of fire
Piercing and painful like a bed of nails
Wild beasts in the nightSmoke in the night.
Wild beasts. Hairy Kapos who steal crowns
From innocent teeth
Smoke wafting from fires that are flesh
Fierce jagged fires that consume, melt
Darkness in the nightIn case the poem didn't explain itself-
Darkness, morbid darkness
Darkness, deadly darkness
Darkness, toxic darknessThe choking black of the reaper's cloak
The icy black of midnight runs to hell
The terrible black in watching the death of love
The empty black of an empty soulDarkness in the night.
The reason that Elie Wiesel's book is called Night is simple. His experiences in Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchewald were like night: dark and chilling.
Emily Ginsburg (yes, this is a link)The mainstream is called a stream because of its shallowness. -George Carlin
