Melissa Lee is the featured poet at Moon Town Cafe. http://www.moontowncafe.com/

the morning doesn''t wish of itself this dark coldness it wants to be told apart a story much unlike the night and all it''s bountiful burdens the red flashing of a digital timepiece; the blues within the darkness how those colors pull at your mind until you feel the weight of wondering understand how darkness forms. the morning doesn''t wish of itself this junket banter of blindfolded virtues spun around in the dark oh the real dark pinning tails on donkeys that long left content to be swishless. there is nothing funny about the witching hour punching you in the arm like a birthday ow or the clear calm truth that it is actually just you your own hand so detached from your own mind looking out for what is in like a beating that used to come everyday at this time in the stillness you miss is it. like the dark will never get to light without full surrender. without mourning. mourning doesn''t wish of you. mourning doesn''t miss you or want you the dead don''t do Timex or digital and they don''t do satellite or serious Love is a glass holding black and tan Life is drinking and walking thinking is ticking with out little clockheads and slamming your faces deeper at a slightly different angle doesn''t lead to sleep or unknowing it again either. all the while you peril yourself still as a blanketed lump your thoughts like polite strangers in a dark room we make Hello my name is stickers for our pajama shirts. you just want to sleep on your mountain? but the cliffside mocking pebbles drop dusting concern as you drift and JAR you. What a terrible thing to be jarred. the tiny holes awled in the screwtop are comfort enough to begin panic and Because has it''s hand over the mouth of Why the clock kicks a timely stone down this dirt road and the smart lights will go off at first dawn while the naive ones will stay on like they don''t know what''s going on pink prepares you for the others who are coming and don''t worry you''ve already learned all their names in the unsleep golden don''t minds and soft warm i told you so''s are marching over this way now even you mountainside sleeper of unrest can bear a smile the dark will submit to shadows for a while what a difference today presents let all your judgements rest the morning knew all along and your dingy is still tied here. you can see it it in the yellow gold white light that was never not coming. so don''t be such a strand of Christmas in February don''t be such a cruel host to your colors. They are only here to make a morning of your night a good night to your mourning. They will come upon you slow unjarring your lid unscrewing your eyes sight rising over the neighbors house like a trickle of white noise like a picture of the people sleeping inside unawares like you used to be. Like you thought you wished you could be but this is clearly better. and orange is here now preparing with pink, first bird bandleader this day is about to start this amazingly orchestrated work of art. your childlike questions will only make you miss seeing so you quiet them (nicely:) and you step into the indifference of all love like a yellow morning does daily oh we like how the tree branches look like our gnarling notions but we don''t like feeling our gnarly emotions. make way for yellow for he/she is coming up and out by now the streetlights have figured it out. and the cold is shifting to a dewy hue and the thoughts that plagued your head all night are starting to sound untrue which was always so but no one could tell you All the colors are eachother too. The sky was black all night but is decidedly light blue. The legions of dark forces you imagined just left in one canoe. The morning knew it all along and you''re dingy is still tied here for you. ~ Melissa Lee Poetry