MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — An unknown scribe who goes by the name “The Midnight Poet” is leaving bits of prose on the doorsteps of some Morgantown homes.
City police Lt. Harold Sperringer says the poems written on scraps of paper don’t appear threatening. In fact, the writer appears to be trying to sway recipients’ minds on a variety of topics.
Sperringer said the poems are “hard to explain” and they “don’t make a lot of sense.”
The notes started appearing on porches last month in the city’s first and second wards. So far police have collected several, but Sperringer says some residents have thrown them away.
One poem entitled “Life Goes On,” muses on the passage of life and ends by encouraging recipients to be “Be humorous, have some fun.”
Another reads:
“I begin to grasp
“The unbearable lightness of being
“As I recognize the inadequacy of language
“Pustules of raw emotion
“Remain dulled with grammatical confinement
“And benevolent features
“Harden with the crux of conformity
“– The Midnight Poet”
Nathan Miller received a couple letters in July. He said he found them on his front porch.
“They don’t seem that threatening,” Miller said, adding he doesn’t like the thought of someone walking onto his porch in the middle of the night.
Sperringer says police have stepped up patrols in the neighborhoods where the poems have been found.
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I like this. A lot. Why not leave poems for people to find on their doorsteps? Better than advertisements or abandoned pets. And yet, sad too–orphaned words, looking for love and acceptance.
Vic,
Nancy told me about your blog. I love this (despite the alarm of the guy who doesn’t like folks on his porch at night.) Am passing this on to my friend john Dufresne, a poet and novelist from New England, now teaching at FIU, in hopes he’ll put it up at his blog and you’ll gain some readers.
Thank you Granny Sue!
And thank you, Beth!