Audiodef

Chet JSmith: Drying In the Night - a narrated poem.

My old buddy Chet JSmith is, among other good things, a wonderful poet. One day, he asked me if I would help him record one of his poems and put music to it. I readily agreed, and "Drying In the Night" is the result. The voice you hear is Chet himself. And yes, his last name really is JSmith - that's not a typo.

Drying In the Night, WAV format, 33 MB

Here is the poem:


The night stretched long and wide,
The rain steady and cold,
The streetlights dim and foreboding,
The anger deep and bold.
 
One apple, if you please?
 
So many people, yet all so lonely.
An attache late for work,
A tourist ripe for the plucking.
A mother and daughter see me, and smirk.
 
A place to sleep maybe?
 
A street run crooked,
A river rushes by,
An old man sitting, shivering.
Billboards filled with lies.
 
Spare change for the needy?
 
A kind heart, sympathy
Just another... pity eyes
How they sit in their smug satisfaction
While another dream dies.
 
And day turns into night
 
Cold
Hatred
Silently
Calculated
Methodically
 
Fear
Hunger
Division
Abandonment
Disillusionment
 
Death
 
Death is welcome,
But death is not to be.
Life clings with claws.
Live was given to me.
 
I want to soar
High in the sky,
To look down
Above all the lies.
 
To swoop in
And make my kill,
To leap away
Into the nightly still.
 
To know what's in a heart
Before mine is broken again.
To see the future days
And to sleep a dreamless night.
 
If dreams are all I have
Then dreams will all I keep.
I will not share it with you
Until you and I are in too deep.
 
Would you share my dream?
Help me soar above the world?
Or would you squash the dream,
And keep it for yourself?
 
The rain has stopped.
The moon is out.
The stars twinkle
In and out.
 
There, on a lamp post,
A hawk watches the night,
His wings spread to dry,
And soon he will take flight.
 
Me,
My dreams,
Wrapped in wings,
For soon to fly
Drying in the night.

Chet holds the copyright to this poem, so please ask for permission to do anything other than refer people to this page. You can ask by emailing me at online-at-audiodef-dot-com.
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