(extinction of useless lights) … Night Approaches Then (poem)

Just before Christmas there was one last Open Link Night for 2025 at dVerse Poets and it was hosted by Grace. At open link night you can link any poem you would like or you can respond to a mini prompt offered.

The mini prompt for this night was for the image below,  “Extinction of Useless Lights” by Yves Tanguy (1927) …

1. Use the image as a muse for your poem. Write an ekphrastic poem (a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art).
2. Or use the title of the image as a title or part of your poem: Extinction of Useless Lights.

But I’m just coming about the prompt now as I knew dVerse was taking a break for the holidays so I hadn’t checked in and, though I obviously missed the deadline for submitting with all the others, I still wanted to do something with it.

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(extinction of useless lights) … Night Approaches Then

The sun cast shadows

in its decline

stretched to the east as if calling

to the shapes of souls

he helped to exist

while he could

to not linger long

in the waste

or try hide in the bramble

as it would offer no haven

from the heaven’s judgement

or angry devils from the depths

reeling in the sky like a kite forced back to earth

pulling darkness behind

until the sun passed away

trying as he might

and the shapes,

the souls,

lost their day

to night