BEDTIME STORY: A POEM

I wrote this one in the late summer and early fall of 1975, soon after I'd moved to Montreal. I have a fondness for it, mostly for the darkness underneath its innocence; I have the feeling I was beginning to experience my first real being on my own in a place that was, well, different. It was published in 1977, along with four other of my new poems from a new city and country, in a newspaper format magazine called The Lance, which was published somewhere in Ontario, I think. Return with us now to those stirring days of yesteryear.....

BEDTIME STORY

All the shadows (those

      friendly faces at the top of

      the stairs

      peeking out of the closet

      you’d never dare open

when you were a kid

                          (those

paranoid playmates

had you

whistling

      to yourself

to assure you

you were

      still alive

When you knew all along

deep

       down

                inside

that you shouldn’t

be

scared,

             all

the demons seemed

the same,

                their faces

flew together

like migrating birds

lost &

shrieking

a chorus

 

ended

in silence

echoes 

 

              (those

major themes

of your life.

                     (& still does.