Nicholas Browning

Soliloquy Past Midnight

 

It couldn\'t have been more than

A passing flicker of ventilation,

Highlighted in the air by a streetlamp -

Becoming adjusted to the observation

 

Of packaged ink in a metal box

And weeds coming through the asphalt,

With fumes on the verge of theft -

Leaving all but discomfort intact.

 

It might have been, that every sleeping thing

Lay quiet, out of respect for time,

Its many burdens, or influential pull -

That they all lay still, out of touch.

 

Perhaps it was, a fleeting quip on the night

Ridden by words too faint to notice,

Or a delusion planted by age\'s resplendence

That sprouted bulbs in a slumbered city,

 

That, somehow, a flat bench became a lighthouse

And as it just so happened, I was resting there,

In situational coincidence, guiding other lights

While I, myself, was lost.