Caves of Light

My long black shadow each morning
mourning its lost kingdom,
is pursued into hiding by the usurper,
becomes by noon no one, gathers
its forces, by evening gets even,
extends over the world, all our shadows
joined, our dreams the fugitive caves
of light in the night.

Note: I love almost-invisible puns, like "each morning mourning," "by noon no one" and "by evening gets even," where the context and sense are strong enough to overshadow (more shadows!) the wordplay. Puns are too often dismissed as "the lowest form of humor," clowns cavorting to earn groans, verbal farts. It's fun to see if I can make them classy. (Or at least less embarrassing, silent, but deadly.)

I didn't try to include night's dark knight. Too obvious. Well, so is morning's mourning, but it makes good sense here. On the other hand, for some reason the visual link between noon and no one is rarely noted, nor the fact that evening IS an evening, since the settling of darkness does soften and even out colors, distances and outlines. There's a fine old word for this: Eventide, the evening a tide flowing over us from east to west.

Speaking of bad puns, every time I turn on the news and hear about the latest political plans for inventing money, I imagine a political seducer twirling his pomaded mustache and saying with a leer, "Hey, Babe, wanna see my stimulus package!"
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The second poem I sent out yesterday started: "Sme are in jail, the rest"--"Sme" should have been "Some" so that the poem should have been:

Some are in jail, the rest
under house arrest.
Nightly the authorities inspect
for dream tunnels.
________________

Dean Blehert
dblehert@verizon.net
dean@blehert.com
www.blehert.com