Thunderstorm at Night by John Calvin Hughes

Thunderstorm at Night

No one tells you that shadows aren’t your friends,
that the dead pile up around you like old furniture,
that the stairs beckon with crooked fingers, broken teeth,
the stars fade watery and thin into indigo.
The sun doesn’t sink. Rather you turn away from it,
a thousand miles an hour, they say.
Instead, the world lies like a lover,
promises cracked like ribs,
beautiful lies arrayed before you,
preening for you.
So what you stumble?
So what the clouds rumble like menace?
The pillows whisper in your fitful sleep
where in dreams you wander from room
to room, street to street, lost, always lost.
What does that mean? What is your mind,
a thing of the world no doubt, trying to tell you?
That you don’t know where you’re
going? Hell, you already know that.

by John Calvin Hughes

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Editor’s Note: Personification creeps through this poem, heightening the ominous message, perfectly suited to this month and these times.