The Meteor Shower

The poet is the child of the moon,
Reflecting all the living light the sun
In graciousness will not withhold. The loon
Can hardly sing a mournful song to one
Who wishes he could say what can’t be said
To those who in the sunlight can’t be fed.

 

I watch the sky to see the stars, to see

The dust and tiny meteors now streak—

Perhaps the stars will fall, or stay for me—

In colors of the fireflies I seek

Among the trees that partly block the moon.

I cannot dance. Perhaps I’ll see her soon.

 

The prophet always speaks in complex verse,

And so the sun in metaphors speaks true

To those who have the ears. I cannot curse

My gifts. I read the sky. Night’s almost through.

Perhaps there’s nothing left for me to see,

But I suspect the sun won’t set me free.

 

The lights are flickering. The fireflies

Are seeking mates. The falling stars are seeking

No one. Warmth, love and nothingness defies

The meaning which we make, are slowly leaking

Into the world where people meet—each verse

Brings greater life. Denial brings the hearse.

 

I listen to all the blue sun has said,

Reflect it like the moon and give the gift

The sun expected me to give. It led

Me, fed me, read me so that I could lift

In flickered patterns like the fireflies

The hazy messages where deep truth lies.

Time Flowers

Time crystal in violet erupts in violent
Enflowered patterns showing the deep rhyme
Of all the cosmos--nowhen it is silent
No matter where this growing fractal mime
Empatterns everyone with fuller time.

Birdwing

The soul is winged in scales of black and white--
Don't pluck your psyche's wings, but let them lift
You into floral flutters of delight--
You are a worm? You have the sacred gift
Of transformation--hatch and grow each wing
And let the people hear you laugh and sing!

Ladybird

The lady sits upon the seed that swells
With all the future--her children helped save
What feeds us all--the parasite that dwells
Among the leaves creates an early grave--
We ought to thank the lady for our bread
That keeps us wise and knowing and well-fed.

The Epic Monster

The hero stared into the monster's maw--
The darkness and meaningless emptiness
More terrifying than the purposed claw,
A comfort like a nihilist's caress,
Denial that we ever ought to try--
The woods were dark and  none would hear his cry.

The stench that poured from out the monster's breath--
Would this foul odor be his final sense?
The anxiousness of nothingness is death
Before you're dead--live only in past tense
And nothing lives in you--you only die
Before you learn that you have wings to fly.

Saliva glistens in the sudden moon
That breaks out from the clouds of ash that fall
As warm, gray snowflakes. Breezes drift a dune
Of ash along his feet, against the wall
Behind him, adding gray to granite gray--
The hero's certain he'll be dead by day.

And then the hero comes to understand
That he must slay himself to truly slay
The death of meaning his life will demand
Of him--remaking meaning, he'll betray
His past to make a future where he's slain
His monster, transformed joy from death and pain.