No Relief

This is a memory of the 1940’s and 1950’s, when I grew up in the HOT HUMID STAGNANT 95/95 (heat/humidity) Ohio River Valley summers. OPPRESSIVE! We would offten have to sleep in screened-in “summer rooms” — porches with overhead fans trying to beat the heat, that soaked your bed, while protecting yourself from the hordes of July/August mosquitos.

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No Relief

~

relentless din of crawling prowling night
pours steaming through my window
midnight intrudes damp and searing
insistent

scalded air too hot and thick to breathe
a heat to suffocate
blades beat and drone overhead
promising relief
in vain

sweltered darkness lays heavy upon me
unbearable

I toss in labored half-sleep
gasping for cool relief
restless

I inhale deep to fill my lungs
seeking satisfying breath
only to bake them in cruel heat
no relief

salted droplets trace my spine
baste my neck
pool in the hollow of my fevered chest
bloom and seep
from beneath the smother
of matted soak atop my head
to weep their way ‘cross smoldering brow
into my eyes
and sting

in this nocturnal furnace
night clings and stifles
even dreams are scorched
simmering in summer

~ ~ ~

rob kistner © 2019

 

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  • 12 thoughts on “No Relief”

      1. Very RW, when there is no escape from the unprecedented heat we have been seeing, in areas not normaly acclimated to air conditioning. This is also a memoryof the 40’s and 50’s, when I grew up in the HOT HUMID STAGNANT 95/95 (heat/humidity) Ohio River Valley summers. OPPRESSIVE!

    1. Living in Florida, a/c is axiomatic — no way to survive a summer without it. But for many in more northern climes, heat waves of late are more intolerable without the fridge box in the window. You captured well the torment, the sense of having no place to go, finding no escape into sleep.

      1. Thank you Brendan. This is also a memory of the 40’s and 50’s, when I grew up in the HOT HUMID STAGNANT 95/95 (heat/humidity) Ohio River Valley summers. OPPRESSIVE! We would offten have to sleep in screened-in “summer rooms” porches with overhead fans trying to beat the heat, that soaked your bed, while protecting yourself from the hordes of July/August mosquitos. Lots of cold showers, and month-long vacations into Espamola, Ontario, Canada when posdible.

    2. Yes!!! The illustration….the description….the last two lines…and those inferno blades turning, whirling but really just beating against unending searing heat…pushing it around. Just a great take on the prompt!

      1. You get it Lillian. This was my childhood, as I described in my commented to Brendan here. But we survived the many years until the era of practical air-conditioning for the home, a luxury that really wasn’t effectively, or affordably available to the horde of us normal folk.

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