Blues In The Night Poem by Michael Stephens

Lights dance across the loft
While outside the rain falls soft
And on the radio Dylan sings a lament
While you lay entwined with your new lover
And wonder what it all meant….
While lightening flashes across the night sky
And thunder rumbles soft through the city’s valleys
Conjuring visions and dreams of someone else
And you wonder if she cries
Or if she’s forgotten even your name.
Such is the game….

Outside the distant forlorn echo of a train
Making its way through the night and rain
And you light a cigarette
While Loretta sleeps quietly in the warm bed
And dreams to forget her own regret….
When she awakes you’ll take the stage
Actors in your own melodrama
A drama full of passion and rage
No one to witness the games you play
Angry words fueled by other’s names.
Ghosts you can’t tame…

And a baby cries down the hall
While you wonder if it meant anything at all
Infinite visions and dreams of corruption
Loretta stirs and coughs
At the memories that disturbed her dream of salvation…
You take a deep drag on your cigarette
Well Nora tried to tell you
That she’d be something you’d regret
And now the radio plays a slippery blues
And Loretta awakes and smiles and speaks your name
Quietly like it’s a sad song….

And you smile, but wonder how long
You can continue to sing this same song
Not a freedom song but a slave’s dirge
Beautiful it is, perhaps,
But full of longing and rage
But you knew this would happen didn’t you?
Two people haunted by ghosts they can’t tame
Memories and longings for different names
Never spoken in the loft
Except perhaps muttered soft
On a cold, rainy night….

Such are these dreams
Wondrous, but wounding things
That spark some hidden desires…
Well, she treats you kindly even so
But you know it’s only a matter of time before she goes
Because she thinks about a different man
The one who took her by the hand
And led her to all her secret places,
It’s the kind of thing you can’t compete with
The one who fulfilled every wish
But tonight, tonight…

Well, you think, Loretta’s all right
And looks pretty good in this dim light
So you put out your cigarette
And jump into the bed and take her in your arms
Tonight there’ll be no angry words of regret
You’ll be intertwined till dawn
And you’ll both awake with a yawn
The night’s tricks forgotten for now
The melodrama that fuels the muse
That fills you both with sweet sorrow
And makes you sing the blues
In the night…