reflections on chasing a bum from my backyard with a baseball bat at 530 a.m.

i hate this dark of almost-day,
this teasing ersatz night phase,
never as long as you need.
sunrise accomplice! bringer of birds
and their songs, sharp like needles
in the night-shift-weary mind.

but barefoot, baseball bat in hand
and growling at some shaded form,
i must admit: the foreplay-dawn
wee hours - the woeful wakeful few -
may haunt my rest like biting flies,
but gird the mind with useful rage indeed.
530 is a witching hour of fell & sorcerous intent,
a conduit for the coven of the closing shift;
demon-fueled, we swing our bats,
we growl in vile forbidden tongues
at drunken indigents on our flowerbeds.