Night Machine

-Night Machine-
by
Keaton Foster



Asleep
They lay
Deadness
Do they betray
Their hearts
Jealous sparks
Indeed
Beating
Repeating
Refusing every right
Denying their plight
Their eyes
Closed
Ever so tight
No one really knows
What do they see
How this all will be
Can they see both
The present and the past
Do they know what I don’t
Do they understand what I won’t
They dream such delicious dreams
But when they are awake
No secrets do they break
They won’t tell me
Nothing
Nada
Ni
No details forthcoming
Not a one
I must take every inference
From their subjugated nuance’s
And their lives every purpose
Every meaning must be opened
Understood, and thus
Somehow regurgitated
It is what must be done
Night machine
Is my name
A moniker
That I won’t betray
As they sleep in peace
I run around in horror
Wondering the impossible
Betraying the plausible
Laying down lines
Of innocuous rhymes
Those who brave
The cluttered page
As always
As expected
Some sanity need be rejected
They do so at their own peril
I can and do promise them
Without question, nothing
I only speak from my heart
And from my ever deepening soul
Some tell me they know
That they dare to understand
While others
Far more I must admit
Tell me that I am mad
A poet with an empty page
Living his life with one foot
Firmly placed in the grave
I am unafraid of death
Unconcerned with what is said
And with what is often suggested
But what I do fear most
Is living this entire life
Not yours, not theirs
Wholly mine
Without leaving anything
Of real substance behind
That would be both
A travesty and a tragedy
One that I cannot
And will not endure
These words of course
Are meant to be eternal
Gods upon their own right
Weights upon their own hearts
That is what I wish
What I hope beyond hope
Night machine
Is my name
A moniker
A way to identify me
And the dire way
In which I find inspiration
And thus a method for
Surviving my predicament…



Night Machine
Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2013