Perdita, Patron Saint of Midnight by Paulie Lipman

                   Jeff Ruane CC



​Perdita, Patron Saint Of Midnight

Gather unto me
all those crying
into the dark

who can’t turn 
their back from
the night before

who can only
greet the new day
without the sun

those who thrive
under the certainty
of the stars and
the ones made 
small by them

all the bar rooms
and all those who
can’t go back

the needle dancers
and powder mad
tipped on the verge
of never again and
just once more

those whose power
lay in the moon
and those who
ply their trade
in its light

all the damned
and the blessed
the hounds and
the hounded

everyone who
can’t fathom reaching 
this hour and all those
praying to reach the next

the drivers and
screamers and 
seekers and 
small and
grand and
defiant and
accepting
strange 
off kilt
all reveling
and weeping
alike

Lift up
all your hands
to the dark
and know
that someone
knows that you
are here and that
you are whole 

​

Paulie Lipman is a former bartender/bouncer/record store employee/Renaissance Fair worker/two time National Poetry Slam finalist and a current loud Jewish/Queer/ poet/writer/performer. His work has appeared in Button Poetry, Write About Now, The Emerson Review, Drunk In A Midnight Choir, Voicemail Poems, pressure gauge, Protimluv (Czech Republic) and Prisma: Zeitblatt Fur Text & Sprache (Germany). Their poetry collections from below/denied the light and sad bastard soundtrack are available from Swimming With Elephants Publications   

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