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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Bedtime Story

Dark Rose by Petr Kratochvil


She clutches her pillow as a charm
Against the unbearable stillness.
Night should bring
The mending serenity of sleep,
Not fevered paranoia
Wrought by brittle nerves
Crusted with the scars of the past.
A midnight breeze
Rustles the willow branches
Outside her window,
A sound more like the scratching
Of unsheathed claws
Waiting to pierce tender flesh.
She measures each breath carefully
With a silent prayer on her lips,
The lurking unseen demons
Waiting to explode into her room
Much less scary than
The monster sleeping next to her.


~~~~  This poem was written for my prompt this week over at Poetry Jam asking us to write about monsters.  This was partially inspired by the Day 9 OctPoWriMo prompt about sounds/noises.  I also used this week’s words from The Sunday Whirl.

9 comments:

Anna K. Stewart said...

The ending caught me by surprise...thought it worked very well...very vivid descriptions.

Brian Miller said...

oy...great closure on this mary....and scary when the monster lies so close as your own bed...was going to say at night all the sounds play with our imaginations and the shadows too but yours is all the more real than that...

Mary said...

Yikes! I wonder how many people DO have 'monsters' sleeping next to them. Excellent poem to prompt.

my heart's love songs said...

oh! i wasn't expecting that! terrifying, indeed!

i had fun with your prompt this week, Mary! thank you!

Helen said...

Incredible ....

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Wow, this poem turned on a dime with the surprise ending. You so nailed it!

Sarav said...

Your poem was my childhood nightmare--branches scratching and all. Excellent!!

Morgan Dragonwillow said...

Very intense, well done! It brought back memories of my childhood of monsters around my bed.

Jennifer Wagner said...

ooh...chilling piece...i like the build to the surprise ending.