The Darker Side Of The Morning. By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh ©

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

the darker side of the morning.
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005. All Rights Reserved

• all of us were wakened early
  by the screams of old o'hagan.
  his fire was burning out.
  
  my mother sighed and held us close.
  amber streetlights. blackened hedges,
  hiding all kinds of ghosts.
  
  jura barked in the cul-de-sac.
  my dad tried to calm him down but,
  he was only a pup
  
  "easy now boy".
  
  soon, the wet walls of the houses
  echoed a silent, flashing blue.
  one cry of a siren,
  
  then they were gone...

[the_leander]

Nice work mate!

Reminds me of some of the crap I used to witness going through the scummier parts of Plymouth of a Saturday morning on my way to work...

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Nice work mate!

Reminds me of some of the crap I used to witness going through the scummier parts of Plymouth of a Saturday morning on my way to work...

Cheers Alan.

It's a retrospective piece about (O'Hagan) an old man dying (his fire / life burning out) alone in his house on the housing estate where I grew up. People not acknowledged, or living lives of 'quiet desperation'.

Jura was the name of our Alsatian and I was seeking to capture the uneasiness that dogs have when they know someone has died. That panic.

References to colour e.g; amber streetlights and blackened hedges were to convey my childhood vision of very early morning (around 5 or 6am) and us (my mum, sister and me) shivering on our doorstep while my dad calmed the dog down.

Thanks for the feedback mate. Much appreciated ...

[Catherine Edmunds]

Very classy poem, Lugh. I would consider shortening 'all of us' to simply 'we' in the first line, as that takes you directly into the poem without any wordiness. There are a few bits of superfluous punctuation: three instances of commas at the ends of lines where really you don't need them as the line break acts as a comma. Those tiny tweaks aside, this is an excellent piece of writing.

It would fit well on Buk's Goatee, if you fancied posting it there.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Very classy poem, Lugh. I would consider shortening 'all of us' to simply 'we' in the first line, as that takes you directly into the poem without any wordiness. There are a few bits of superfluous punctuation: three instances of commas at the ends of lines where really you don't need them as the line break acts as a comma. Those tiny tweaks aside, this is an excellent piece of writing.

It would fit well on Buk's Goatee, if you fancied posting it there.

the darker side of the morning.
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005 /2006. All Rights Reserved.
Editor - Catherine Edmunds.

• we were wakened early
  by the screams of old o'hagan.
  his fire was burning out.
  
  my mother sighed and held us close.
  amber streetlights. blackened hedges
  hiding all kinds of ghosts.
  
  jura barked in the cul-de-sac.
  my dad tried to calm him down but
  he was only a pup
  
  "easy now boy".
  
  soon, the wet walls of the houses
  echoed a silent, flashing blue.
  one cry of a siren
  
  then they were gone...

Hi Delph

Yeah, I'm really proud of this piece too because it simply poured from me, like it needed to get out. It's interesting for me as the writer that while responding to Alan's feedback on this poem I realised that I had written it to overcome my own fear of death. A fairly natural fear I think you will agree.

Catharsis - Great ain't it ..?

I have made the corrections to punctuation and tightened the beginning as you have suggested and I agree with all of your editing guidance. The entire piece is more fluidic now.

Thank you for your excellent critique and editing skills Delph. I really appreciate all of your help ...

I would be delighted to share this poem with members of Bukowski's goatee and will post it to there shortly...

Cheers Delph ...