Nocturnal 

Transmissions

I wake homesick 

for another world,

even as 
yet another world 

let itself in

via the t.v.

to taunt me,

both Trojan horse

and 

cave of shadows,

trotting out

it’s patter-song 

of brutal banalities.

I vow 

to make a pyre.

Outside, the cold 

clamors to get in

as I lie threatening

to push the bed 

up against the door

like a junked cradle 

that bringeth

no comfort.

After last night

I've become determined 

to ignore everything
that is not me

and give the memory

of you

my full attention.

But you 

fade so fast.

 How can I keep

you with me

when even my

own name is

no more than

a makeshift mask

barely concealing 

the sins

of the world

as my own, if 

only by osmosis.

I yearn to learn

the life-saving

 art of overlooking,

but out of

what troubling

necessity? 

Un-prepared to 

take on the burden

of too much 

reconciliation,

I wrest

and dis-own my own

 mercurial evidence.

I confess I

prefer my trials

under the cover 

of night 

where I can

 be blameless,

free from the bondage 

of belongings,

blissfully

unaware 

I am

the smoking gun

of my own longing.

By living a nightlife

made of

knee-jerk reactions,

a collective psyche 

is hardly a tyranny 

I can count on 

waking from.

After giving 

this morning

the ole’ college try, 

I end up crying

while doing crunches,

an un-arranged marriage

between my
weakness and strength.

No, this is how

I build the stamina

to see you again.

Had no angel

appeared last night
let alone

replete in a tattered 

wife beater

with the words 

WAKE UP

emblazoned across it’s chest,

(in white cotton

no less!),

I might never

 have known 
we were married.

By making love

with a phantom,

I’ve come to accept

my body’s weeping.

True, my mornings are

versed in mourning,
all because of our

reversed metamorphosis

by way of a dream; and

the inevitable evaporation 

of your wings.

Peter Valentyne

2020 in the year of Corona