Calling all police poets! Police1’s poetry column highlights some of the inspirational, moving and funny poems authored by our readers.
While the city goes quiet and the lights burn low, officers are still out there — rolling through empty streets, listening to a crackling radio and making decisions no one will ever hear about. That work is easy to forget. Right up until the moment it isn’t.
In “Dog Watch Shift,” Chief Ramon D. Gonzalez, a Marine Corps veteran who has spent 20 years in law enforcement and now leads the La Joya (Texas) Police Department, puts words to those hollow hours after midnight. This isn’t poetry about glory or headlines. It’s about showing up. About holding the line while the rest of the world sleeps. About the responsibility officers carry, shift after shift, whether anyone notices or not.
Email your original poem for consideration to editor@police1.com.
Dog Watch Shift
Written by Chief Ramon D. Gonzalez
In the hollow hours past midnight’s mark,
The lamps burn low and the town grows dark,
The dog watch rises as the shadows creep,
While the world drifts into unworried sleep.
We move through streets where secrets lie,
Under a moon that hangs in a wary sky.
The things we witness, the fears we chase
Most never know what haunts this place.
A crackling radio guides our night,
Its urgent whisper our constant light.
Each call a test of heart and nerve,
Each choice a promise we quietly serve.
We guard the calm they’re dreaming in,
Holding the line thin as a grin.
The darkness shows what most won’t see,
But we stand firm, that’s our guarantee.
Though they may wake with peaceful dawn,
Unaware what dangers came and gone,
We’ll still be there on the fading night,
Protecting them until dawn’s first light.
For this is the watch where courage stays,
Through silent streets and shadowed ways.
The dog watch faithful, strong and true
Keeping the dark from passing through.
