Willful is the Night

The night ignores my supplications,
for it is theme with contempt,
a bottleneck of time perpendicular to agreement,
a hurdle fluent in diabolic exclusion;
it murmurs in dither, stuttering stuffy
like the coldness of catacombs,
like moldy cotton.
Onerous night, you officiate my sleeplessness,
you flourish in devious delivery with stiff hands
and distinct pacing,
you encourage the deafening silence
with lacerated lips and crooked teeth.
I have known you to fume, to scoff,
to ridicule
and to mock, to confine my comfort
to icy flasks balanced in scalded palms;
Combatant, sallow is your facade,
yet you flare as a sinister sleuth
in humid murk,
ignoring any pleas to slacken strained nerves.
Efficacious night, you plunder
like racketeers, like duplicity left to multiply
in arenas of lawlessness.
Demeanor, ours is a muscle overwrought,
shackled at each end, a prosecution
deposed
in a windowless, narrow court.
Reveal remorselessness once more,
for you are prompt to the careworn;
come, exhume any pretense of pause,
taut this tenuous resistance, like
rayon ripped on rusty nails.


32 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Winner
4-23-20

Requirement:
Use Alliteration:
(Alliteration is bolded)