In the Air Tonight

The scene still haunts me.
Years have passed.
I saw him as you
Breathed your last.

Macabre visions
Fill my brain
Of how you’d never
Breathe again.

No one saw me,
But I was there
Shrouded by shadows
Everywhere.

I saw the struggle,
The loss of life.
I thought that you
Might be his wife.

Innocence left me
That dark spring night
When you left this world
By pale moonlight.

He dragged your body
Aboard a scow.
There was no help
For you now.

A boy that night
Scared stiff with fright,
I smell vengeance
In the air tonight.


28 lines


Writer’ s Cramp
New Prompt:

Choose one of these song titles, and weave a story or poem around it:

The Trees (Rush)

Out in the Fields (Gary Moore)

Fortunate Souls (Brenda Bee)

Freight Train (Chet Atkins)

In the Air tonight (Phil Collins)


The story goes that Phil watched as a man who once attacked his wife drowned. Another version was that Phil wrote the song about a man who watched another man drown, and sang it to him at a concert.

Yet another version claims that when Phil was a young boy, he witnessed a man drowning someone but was too far away to help. Later, he hired a private detective to find the man, sent him a free ticket to his concert, and premiered the song that night with the spotlight on the man the whole time.

Of course, none of these stories are true.