Remnants of last night, in patches,
Rendered heavy to the pitch of black.
An eave, being overhung, catches
A nook that dawn is yet to crack.
Fragments in angular spaces,
Brutal joints, unfinished and stark,
Stubborn nocturnal traces,
Carved into crevices, deep and dark.
Segments, pieces of a mute mosaic,
Drained of narrative; story-less,
Burdened by a daily habit; hard to break,
Draped in the dull garb of dreariness.
. Through a broken dawn, comes a sunrise shattered.
. Shadows born, then torn and scattered.

© Tim Grace, 6 January 2011

To the reader: With dawn comes the realisation of what remains of last night; the shroud of darkness has been lifted. The homeless, cramped in corners and nestled in nooks, are slow to rise. Around them the city stirs into action. Sunlight nudges its way into cavities. And so breaks the day. The heaviness of night grips the vagrant who with reluctance shadows another day … awaiting a new night to fall.

To the poet: This poem holds strong to its form of three distinct stanzas; blocked out as remnants, fragments, and segments of a shared theme. The continuous lines of verse ignore those breaks and seamlessly roll into a single thread of thought. It’s also a poem that plays confidently with the literary features of alliteration, assonance and consonance. While inspired by a short visual moment, I remember this poem took considerable working; days.

remnants