Night Game

by Peycho Kanev

On some nights
sleep just won’t come.
Maybe because the cat
won’t stop darting through the dark,
chasing things only
she can see,
or because the moon above is painfully
round and menacing,
or because the brain decides
at that exact moment
to replay every mistake and
blunder from recent memory,
or maybe it’s because
death is standing outside
the window, waiting patiently…
Then, somewhere in the distance, in the city’s gut,
something explodes loudly—I lift my head,
the woman beside me is sound asleep,
and I glance into the darkness at the phosphorescent
hands of the clock.
It’s too early or too late
for anything, and yet somehow
I manage to let go and fall asleep,
along with the rest of the people in the city,
while death keeps standing
outside the window, waiting patiently.

In the End

I sit here at night and drink,
and the clock shows 2:37,
and Hemingway is in Idaho, talking about bullfights, war,
and hot Spanish women under the blazing sun,
until morning comes and he puts the barrel in his mouth.
The clock shows…
oh, I sit here at night and drink,
and Van Gogh is slowly losing his mind in the fields
of Arles, while painting the beautiful yellow world,
and I sit here at night and drink.
The clock shows 3:58,
and they shot Lorca with a few bullets
in the back and a few in the ass, because he was
a homosexual.
Bach sits in the radio, and every single note
is like a particle from the eyes of God,
and I sit here at night and drink,
while dark clouds chase each other through the tar-black sky,
and everything pours into my mouth and sinks deep
into this grave inside me.
And I can no longer see the clock, and the strings
of the night ring like sirens.
The calendar on the wall begins to burn—
I keep sitting here and drinking into the night.
The moon is the color of a coffee stain.
Silent magpies perch across the rooftops.
All the women are sleeping in their beds somewhere out there.
Cops wander the empty streets.
In the end, I drink the last glass
and open the window toward the light.

BIO

Peycho Kanev is the author of twelve poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.