WELL DONE! Poetry ENEMY’S EMBRACE by Mike Turner

ENEMY’S EMBRACE by Mike Turner

‘Tis not the thief in the night

Which is the enemy

Nor even night itself

But time

Rising as a mist on the bayou

Deep, chilling, relentless

Oozing in through chinks and cracks

Of what is left of the present

Subsuming all

Swallowing the last rays of sunshine

Dimming to hazy twilight

Until the final mote of day is winked out

Leaving only blackness

And eternity itself becomes without meaning

Because when no more change is to come

No more future beckons

When light and hope and memory are all taken from us

Even “now” becomes without form

Ceasing relevance

And time bares the menace of the infinite

As we sink in its embrace

Entombed

In an instant

Mike Turner retired to the Alabama Gulf Coast after more than 25 years as a Federal law enforcement executive. An adult ed ukulele class opened the world of music and songwriting to Mike; with more than 200 original songs to his credit, he was featured on the “15 Minutes of Fame” stage at the 2020 Monroeville Literary Festival. Mike has had more than 280 poems published in more than 30 literary journals and anthologies; his poetry book, Visions and Memories, is available on Amazon. His poem, “A Sense of Peace,” was awarded the 2023 Roger Williams Peace Award for Writing by the Alabama Writers’ Cooperative. When not writing and recording, Mike explores the backwaters of the Northern Gulf with his wife, Pamela, on their recreational trawler.