A Beast of Night

Ice 2-19-87

sans stanza 2, this won the Lafayette H.S. poetry contest for 1987, and was printed in the Marquis, our H.S. literary paper. My original intent was for certain of the alliterations to actually line up, and this is my effort to actually recreate my original poem, not the one entered in the contests. My creative writing teacher thought stanza two broke the rhythm...but those who know me can probably tell that the refrain is actually important in the telling.

A million miles
               'tween hand and me.
Is what I touch
   what I see?
Broken,   shattered,
        I stumble upon reality...
But am  I the one
        I think is me?

All is airy,
            be it rough, be it smooth--
Two-dimensional sight.
So I touch,
           but do not feel...
Is it reality
             that they call real?

Painful, torrid,
                Gripped with fright,
Hidden objects
              from my sight
I see best
            where is  no light...
The vision of a beast of night?

I see the silence,
                   color a sound
Open my ears
             to look around
My own steps trodding
             the rock-hard ground
Find in silence
                what none has found.