# February Challenge: "Night"



## Fin (Feb 1, 2014)

Click here for the workshop thread


* Chosen by toddm, this month's prompt is "Night"*


You're free to interpret the prompt in any way you wish, though site rules apply. The winner will receive the Laureate award, a free month of FoWF, and will get to choose next month's prompt.

You may have your entry posted in the *workshop thread* if you wish to protect your first rights. Note: If you do so, you must post a link to it here in the main thread or risk being disqualified.

Please send your entry to *Fin* if you wish to enter anonymously. If you would like it to be posted in the workshop section, then say so within the PM.

You have a ten minute grace period to edit your work after posting. Anything after that and it'll be discounted. So make sure it's as finished as it can be before entering.

Do not post comments in this thread. It's for entries only. If you have any questions or comments, please post them in the *Bards' Bistro.*


*This challenge will close on the 14th of February at 6pm EST.*


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## bazz cargo (Feb 2, 2014)

http://www.writingforums.com/threads/144697-February-Challenge-quot-Night-quot-Workshop


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## Gumby (Feb 3, 2014)

*Just another knight…*

  [FONT=&Verdana]Gasoline fumes singe his nose,
the traffic sounds all around
and the soft snick, snick, snicker
of the pump, as it fills his tank
and drains his wallet.

He smooth’s his hand down the sleek [/FONT]
  flank of his Charger, 
  [FONT=&Verdana](the finest destrier Dodge ever made)
then spies her across the tarmac
sizing him up, planning her approach.

One glance confirms it—
sunken cheeks, toothless jaw, 
eyes, gaslight blue with intent—
a meth-o-logical creature.
In these days of whine and poses,
her kind roam the parking lots,
often in pairs.

Bracing for her charge,
a flick of wrist lowers
the Ray-Ban visor of his helm.
He shifts his holy lance
to the corner of his mouth
and lifts his invisible shield,
emblazoned with his coat of arms:[/FONT]

  a bright red stop sign 
  [FONT=&Verdana]and the words, _[FONT=&Verdana]Here be dragons.
[/FONT]_
But her steps falter, eyes dim,
she cedes him victory
with the plaintive words,
“I wasn’t gonna ask for money,
I just wanted to know the time.”[/FONT]
  [FONT=&Verdana]They both know it’s a lie.

As she turns, recedes into the night[/FONT]
  seeking new prey, He hears, 
  “We’re all just people, we’re all the same.”
  [FONT=&Verdana]And for a moment, watching her go,
he swore he caught the acrid scent
of fire and brimstone.[/FONT]

  Shaking his head 
  he slips into his Charger,
  mutters under his breath,
  “Just another night…”​


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## Ethan (Feb 6, 2014)

*Night*

Darkness waits, her shroud open and inviting
With lovers embrace she welcomes the unwary.
Caressing prickling flesh and hammering hearts,
stealing the light, and lending imagination to her presence.


Her Indiscernible whisperings, calm tossing heads,
and numb the senses with dark intent,
whilst sleep, her erstwhile companion, softly steals the soul.
Surrounding the candle with her globe of shadow,
she  searches hungrily for weakness in the valiant glow.


Relentless in her attentions, she presses advantage,
squeezing cruelly the beleaguered flame of consciousness.
Soon, as always, abject surrender shall be her patient reward
then, her mantle established, she will again declare her domain.​


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## escorial (Feb 6, 2014)

Myself an I
-------------------
I hope I die in the night
darkness all around me
lying in a strange room
nobody able to identify me
placed in a unmarked grave
never to be remembered
finally left alone on my own


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## Squalid Glass (Feb 9, 2014)

*After, Beyond*


Romantic fights under disco lights,

hands beneath the stars 
reaching for quasars,

and feeling, far as cosmic background radiation.


Supernovas ignite; each, another removed 
from the chaos of younger nights.


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## Pidgeon84 (Feb 9, 2014)

Stockholm

  I watched her sleep
  It would be the last time
  I’ve sunk so deep 
  Tonight I make the leap

  Like a siren song
  It calls in the night 
  And I will slip away 
  Under the moon’s pale light

  Forgive me my dear 
  For in the morning rise
  You will find that I have left you here
  Footprints will be my only trace

  As I go out into empty space
  There is nothing left for me here 
  Don’t call for a reason
  For this thing quite queer

  I can’t truly explain
  But the things I seek aren’t anywhere near
  But tonight I catch the last flight 
  On this cold, winter night


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## toddm (Feb 9, 2014)

*Elle and the Moon*

Elle sat with little folded hands
and looked out on the empty lands.
She watched the Sun turn every shade
and then burn low and gently fade.
The Moon rose bright, but upside-down,
and looked upon her with a frown.
"You are too little a girl," said he,
"to be out at night on the grassy sea,
like a primrose lost among the weeds,
but oh! what are those shining beads
threaded upon your soft eyelashes
and falling onto your pretty sashes?"
"Tears," she said, "but leave me be,
I do not wish for company."
"Oh," he remarked, with old eyes blinking
surrounded by hundreds of stars winking,
"you cannot be quite on your own,
my course won't change for you alone."
She made no answer to him, but she
continued sobbing there quietly.
"My dear," he said, "weep if you must
over bitter loss or deeds unjust,
but I must on my night-course pass
over you sitting there in the grass."
She kept in sorrow with head hung low
and he turned his frowning face to go.
Then drawing down to the little miss,
he there bestowed a gentle kiss
upon her cheek which still was wet
from tears that she was shedding yet.
She then looked up into the lamp
that was his face, her eyes still damp,
and saw, where once a frown had been,
the crease of a kindly smile begin.
She stood then drying her bleary eyes
as he made his way across the skies.


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## midnightpoet (Feb 10, 2014)

Light

Night does not always mean darkness,
and darkness does not always mean death.

The moon has no light of its own,
yet reflects the brilliance of the sun.

Even the heavens sprinkle the night
with visions of long-vanished, burned-out stars.

So we should see light
even in darkness,

and show the world
that faith can

overcome the darkness
and bring hope to the world.


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## dannyboy (Feb 11, 2014)

Odysseus Before The Window.

I hear a trumpet this night, visualize the trumpeter’s lips 
pursed, the cheeks
inflated to produce a sound 
that echoes in the spaces between the disks of my spine 
as I stand naked this night, this
implausibly hot night.

The heat makes everything unreal… trapped here
unable to move, the trumpet’s sound creating me, undoing me,
calling me home and away again, prying into my mind.

I grow fearful I might forget who I have become - the choices
that cannot be unmade; the actions,
thoughtless and destructive, that litter
like sun-glinting bottles strewn beside a highway.

This Van Gogh night - the colours melt, merge, bend 
with sounds, with smells, with memory; the stars are not 
right and yet
their swirling bright attack on the dark,
like that trumpet,
gives me heart as I stand in the front
of this open window, the breeze wafting
as the brick exudes heat and my mind
imagines a thousand possible excuses…

she stirs behind me -

I had hoped this was not to be or
that this me standing here
was not me

or that the picture I had tried to paint
as my life

had become my reality and the trumpet was soothing 
not
The Siren calling me out again.


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## Pandora (Feb 11, 2014)

*Waiting for the Light*

_Deep in the Night . . .

Light _
_
burns pictures

behind closed eyes


Visions flicker _

_a strobe dance 

another night  another day

_
_ Light burns.


Supernatural burn

starts easy stops hard 

fired by Demon 

or God


possessed to Dream

in a dream

left only fearing 

Fear.

_
_The after burn

another day another night

waiting for the Light . . . _


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## aj47 (Feb 11, 2014)

Scene Change

with pen and inkwell
the writer closes the day
drawing forth darkness


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## Terry D (Feb 12, 2014)

Seeing True

Sol’s eye at the magenta horizon closes,
Squeezing out the last sherbet tear.

Day’s end sees boastful light drain,
In an insistent tug of Gaia’s veil.

Our speck of stone spinning madly,
All that we know on one Sun swaddled grain.

Illusions of sight, cover our eyes like scales,
Nothing more than a trick of the light.

The world that we see ‘neath the shroud of day,
Is nothing more than a devil’s lie.

Only after dark has risen and spread its wings to take starry reign,
Do the scales fall away to reveal the face of God.


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## bookmasta (Feb 13, 2014)

Moments are nothing but fractions in time
That define the rest of our lives
And like a fleeting glimpse 
A luminescence shinning bright, in an otherwise dark time
You came into my life

Quick and short of notice
You and I lived
We chased without haste in our pursuit

Our time together was only one of these moments
But it was one I will never forget.
For what You and I had was special

Our love, transcending our years
And our dreams, the many we talked about 
Where imagination flourished and thrived
Were to a reality, for you and I
That we planned to come true

And in our short existence 
You were my Queen, and I your King
And for the first time, there was peace
In the chaos I called my world

Together, we had a future
With the fruits of our endeavors
Only the sky was the limit
In our pursuit of happiness

You and I, as one
We would be the rulers of our own world,
In our kingdom by the sea

But even the sun sets in Paradise
And for every day there must be a night
An eventual sunset that brings with it
The end to these moments

And within the finality of fate
Where Death knows no bounds
Picking anonymously who to reap
As quickly as you came to me
You were swept away, in the arms of Eternity

I was left alone, abandoned 
Lost with no sense of direction
Where darkness lies, in depths of Night

Here, insidious thoughts seem inescapable
The Devil’s voice tempting my mind
Astray in a realm of disparity

All aspiration is lost without you
I contemplate the fine line, between life and death
If I severed the tie,
Would I see you again, in the heavens?

But in this void, hope remains
A lone light burning bright
The one that reminds me of us

I hold fast to your memory
Where a revival takes place
And understanding is met, anew begins

You may be gone, but you still live
Young and bright, within my memory
Where hope resides, within my heart

I may be here without you
But I haven't forgotten you
And I never will

That is the promise I hold to you
Your memory, living within me
I will never forget

On the horizon, a new sun is rising
Turning the dark of night, to a rosemary twilight

The chill recedes 
and it is bright again. 

This is where my hope resides
With your memory in mind, 
This is where you reside

And maybe one day
We will meet again
In the stars 
Where I know you await

​


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## Fin (Feb 14, 2014)

*Late Nighter
Anonymous Entry*​


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