THE NIGHT TRAVELLERS



The night travellers
Come from out of the rain,
Calling late at night
They steal your breath away.

Beautiful translucent young woman
More like a mermaid than a girl,
Lives her life in water
But travels 'round the world.

The bearded ringmaster
Leading the travellers at night,
Stealing your hopes away
Until you're lost to fright.

They can always find an audience
Even in rural wastelands,
An evil calliope plays
Like the Devil's private band.

Breathlessly the audience
Watches their every show,
Silent living corpses
With nowhere or -way to go.

Dehydrated face and eyes
Flesh as dry as parchment,
Barely living, never breathing
Incapable of any movement.

"Step up!" cries the bearded man
"Step up and see the show!"
The breathless audience watches
Unable to stand or go.

The travellers will move on soon
Unto some other place,
Their captive audience with them
Lost from time and space.

"Take this one," says the mermaid
Her face shining with delight,
As they steal the breath of another
Who then vanish into the night.

Undeath surely awaits then
As their lives are put on hold,
Their flesh is dry like plastic
Their bodies are deathly cold.

Breathlessly the audience
Will follow till time does end,
Nevermore to be seen now
By their loved ones or their friends.

As the rain falls, the travellers
Seem to appear right out of nowhere,
To call an unsuspecting audience
To their carnival of despair.

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

The night travellers Come from out of the rain, Calling late at night They steal your breath away.

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Written on October 03, 2019

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on June 09, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:17 min read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme axbc xxdx dbcb eaxx Efgf xhxh xfgf xixi xbdb xjxj Ekxx alel kxx
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,448
Words 255
Stanzas 13
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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    "THE NIGHT TRAVELLERS" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/102249/the-night-travellers>.

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