In the Night-time Heat

In the night-time heat,
June bugs buzzing on the screen
- don't they know it's July? -
I sit motionless,
feeling the sweat roll down my chest.

I hear a car idling across the street
and wonder what it's doing there,
whether the occupants are perhaps
enjoying an air-conditioned respite
from their sweltering house,
or maybe they are moonlight lovers
sneaking in a sweaty rendezvous,
their temperatures rivaling the outside's.
Who knows what can happen on a night like this?
Murder, mayhem, music, booze, sex, drugs
all melting together on a sultry summer night
revolving in its own steamy torture.
Sleep won't come so a writer writes
and down in the heartless city
an old man dies of heat stroke.
Alone in the endless world.

 - Rick Dale


Rick Dale is the author of The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions  - part nonfiction how-to, part memoir, and part journal, The Beat Handbook lays out one hundred days of reading, writing, and introspection that can help you find your inner Beat.

Rick has a D.Ed. in Educational Administration from Pennsylvania State University, and is a professor in the Special Education Department at a state university in Maine. In the Night-time Heat is reprinted here with the author's permission. It first appeared in the Daily Beat in a slightly altered format.

Like the be-bop jazz that inspired a generation of nomadic wanderings and writings, Night-time Heat bops to a different rhythm on this page.