Poem of the Month
Waking at 4 a.m.

By Stephen Morrissey

Published on June 1, 2015

There in the darkness
silence dwells, and the long
wait for morning, daylight
around the window shade
in what’s left of night;
nothing here is exceptional,
someone sitting on the side
of the bed, feet on the floor,
writing with the patience
of the resigned; observe
the architecture of darkness,
the slow construction of light
across the bedroom floor
(it will all work out
it always has), and the steady
hum of an electrical appliance
in another room;
this is when the poem
of morning is created;
we are workers in the darkness,
early risers, busy with
the enterprise of light.

More Poetry

Everything is a circle

everything is a circle completing the pages

of history to repaint it

retranscribe the traditional legends

Abundance

The streets of the living are among the streets of the dead, the houses of the living among the houses of the dead – three centuries of dead packed close, stacked twelve deep. On stones, scissors mark a tailor, grapes announce abundance.

Insurance Claim

Here’s how it panned out:
the stick of dynamite,
thrown on the pond
to break up ice for trout