NIGHT HOBBIES
                      
            Fell the blast of Winter's voices, as the King of frost
                                   rejoices,
       And the street-lamps dimly flicker in a world of twinkling white;
         Over rooftops drifts are piling and the daemon-faces smiling,
           For at last they are the undisputed Masters of the Night.

And while Stygian silence reigns behind the darkened windowpanes,
Not even squeaking waggon-wheels to cheer the frozen gloom,
Here my flickering candles gutter with their sibilating stutter,
While I settle down to Lovecraft in my dusty attic room.

         Through the roof-boards, all a-kilter, tiny streams of powder
                                    filter,
           And the numbness in my hands gives way to Arkham's spell,
        To the plaintive wail of sorrow; Devil take the mundane morrow,
            Which I dread with terror deeper than the fear of Hell.

For tomorrow this will vanish, and the business world will banish
HPL to all the dreadful regions of Ethereal Man,
But while Arkham's Silent People congregate beneath their steeple,
Let the howling winds complain, but I'll read Lovecraft while I can!

                                --Fred Phillips
                                    12/22/69
                                           
             [pg. 15, NO-EYED MONSTER #19, Spring 1974]                         

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