THE MIDNIGHT HOWLER



The midnight howler’s shrieking
With a strange, loathsome delight,
He’s shrieking for the homeless folk
Whose life is just a blight.

He’s shrieking with delight
For all the hopelessness he sees,
The sad and lonely losers
Whose whole life’s sheer misery.

The howler spreads despair
Around a malignant town,
Howling with delight as
The mighty come tumbling down.

The howler is a misery-guts
He feeds on suffering and pain,
His howling in delight is
A loser’s last refrain.

The howler’s like a banshee but
His shrieking is in delight,
Street people huddle around braziers
Aquiver in morbid fright:

They’re frightened of the howler
And all the pain he brings,
Suffering, hurt, and death
As this ghoulish chorister sings:

He sings of death and loneliness
And the failure of every kind,
The loss of life’s a luxury
To those the howler finds:

He finds his prey in thickets
No covers to hide their heads,
He sings a lullaby of death
And by finishing they’re dead!

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

About this poem

Horror poem about a creature that howls in delight at pain and suffering, and can "sing" people to death.

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Written on October 05, 2011

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on June 17, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
1

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA AXBC XDXD EFXF XABA XGHG XXCX EXHX XXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,011
Words 174
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 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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