Imagine (II)

Imagine if my hands were the wind,

My soul a water nymph, quicksilver fast

in a dance among thoughts,

My heart, a maid of the sun

lost in unending silks of light.

In my high castle amongst the clouds,

Cold with deep keystones of ice,

my own sky

in nets of crystal

a river of thinnest golden frost

running always over my lap-

The unripe sun pools on the ground,

The whole world light as a feather.

Forever, I'd weave the day, guard it,

Hold it close in the night-

A keeper of life in a sea of stars

on an island nearly lost,

An unending siege in a standstill.

I Follow the Moon

Not to worry not to fret

my love tells me,

As she brings her world forth.

I lift mine eyes to her sacred sky,

Pulsing with ripples, slowing

winter winds falling to a still pond;

She divines in me, fills my will,

And so my heart shakes-

All light is harsh, dead

'gainst her hands in my soul.

One by one, they come forth-

The chieftainesses with diamond feet,

Their gowns bright with sulphur

trailing in an unmined sky,

Every corner of it proudly held-

The nations of light, their names

etched in the reels they dance,

The dust in sharp petals

left where they turn their heels.

And it is then, in the music,

My soul is ensnared, my being full

in open surrender unfurled, held

against my love's embrace of sky.

Sky of November

The first chill sways in me

My heavy, suspended sunset,

A canvas well marked, yet

More transparent than the wind.

I let them go together-

My last light, and the wind,

For they each live to string

The other’s hollow songs.

Like beads on thread, they live

On the round, cascading necklaces,

A bright, frigid web casting endlessly

At the stars of the light-rent sky.

They hold me, thank me

Before blowing through meager breasts

In hopes of mine- the lost souls

Of theirs and the dying noon.

I am left, pale, truly last in line,

Enshrouded in the wind that stays,

In the last, who bestowed on me

His memories of day.

Those that have me, the hollow hearts

Where my wind and my light

Struggle to thread-

They are more alone than I.

They have not even my sunset,

Only the wind, my wind,

Infused with stolen roses

Which make plain dreams wild.

Beyond Magnolias

The sky opens widest,
Shy of any return, dancing
at the edge of another complete
Being.
Nobody watches, so slowly
when all the softness goes
seeping into ground.

Color walks forth, shedding
any and all pretense, shining
brighter than ever before;
The world is really still
when colors cease to quarrel, the best
of all shades shed the same.

Take another step back,
See the cotton thread wind
pulling all of us round, away-
Sheerer than any quiet sky,
they race down the horizon
in neck to neck harmony.

Disillusionment Up

Dispossess the sky,
Disposses the loving, the yearning
Nothing the soul holds
So close, perhaps its only friend.

One by one, it slips,
Silvery strings fly free
So thick in the air, it clears
A quick, coughing wind.

We can only look on, soon.
The pain comes, not just before
And never leaves anymore.
We reach, but never grasp,
We grab, and fall further,
We fall, and may never rise.

Day and Night

The finest of them, sweet
Strayed a steady course,
hid a shadow behind.

Her sisters, seeing more beautiful
Finer a worldly mind,
Walked firmly, disappeared
Darkly through the glass.

The finest sunsets, the longest
Threads spun on the sea-
They were gifted mist and dew,
Wove over but mercy's night.

The last of them, sweet fairest
Stayed at the barest point;
All jealousy choked at Dawn
As the light was pawned back.

The Man of the Moon

Her face is not a palest moon,
For shadows wait a velvet sky,
Painting, painting their mistress
In lonely months gone by.

Yet, a man does sit in longing eye,
Unaware of the world
When she sits high,
Carved of the same fancy:
A man, but a man, she sigh...

So be not the shadows,
Always standing by;
And the lover, be not the moon
In our own, changing sky.

Waning Moon

Pale dancers scatter
Against polished floor,
Puffs of tulle gathering
Where the fairest maid waits
To mourn a measured dream:

Her waltz across a private sky,
Pairs and pairs of slippers fly
On crystal stair, that ocean by,
So close to where sailed heartstrings dry!

Then a tango in the vineyard lanes,
Where desire grows,
Those ripest grains;
That eat at princes', paupers' stains
Until a seeded want remains.

She had wanted to touch the ground,
Then and there,
Be fooled, to truly have tangled
In that fragrance fair.

But last, a city
Chased
Light at heart,
Jaded suns
Where darkness start.

And so she knew,
Remembered again,
A shadow cross
Her brightest face,
That Earth, so treaded bright,
Was not her place.

Delayed Advance

A strange maneuver,
Dangling the sun
So high, a pendulum
Upon the marble stair:

Cloud, no longer heavy;
No laughter raining down,
Then booming reprimand.

Thin relief nets now,
Draw sweeping arcs,
Supple foliage
Still fat with dew.

Yet, all the world surrenders,
Arms open
As chains of hazy cloud
Bow away.

Fallen Stars

Once in a forgotten lullaby,
A powder brush slips
Against a seamless sky.

Unpainted stars
Fall upon the formless night,
So many lights
Gathered, crumpled,
Chipped mistake of dawn;
But shadows of the day.

Still, the lonely moon sulks,
Turns a heavy cloak
Past a stencil print:
An exquisite corpse.

Celestial Want

Lady Heaven bade the bumbling Night,
That drunken poet's pride,
To blind an eye on a fullest moon,
All shadows cast aside.

Then she went to court the quarry,
That pebble in the Sea,
That Night had thrown a skipping stone,
Lonely, an isle could be.

A man, however, had reached that orb
That trailed the careless Dark.
He'd sowed his wildest hopes and fears,
His roots in white so stark.

But Heaven, oh help her, set her mind
To carve a mask of moon.
Bright and shining, all shadows shed
So even Night would swoon.

Only she would dare- cross he, sowed there,
Despite the night half blind.
The man, indeed, had been hard with greed,
For dreams could not rewind.

Lucky for her, he fell in love
With her shining silver tress.
Lucky for him, she flirted away
While fishing for redress.

And in the end, neither could leave
The other's want behind.
The mask of moon, hung in the sky,
Is Heaven's courting find.

Netting the Sky

Familiar shapes net my sky,
The walls and all their friends
That are silent where it ends
And glowing where it seams.

When the hazy trickle
Of the heavy heavens slows,
They are the fishers, feasters
To the long summer evening.

A piece of stream falls to me,
Waving and trapped in the thick glass,
The capsule that always will be;
Have me searching, looking to
Where the sky is let go.

Dreamers

Usually I have some idea of what I'm going to write before I write, but I think it might be more interesting if I just type whatever comes to mind. I'm supposed to have a creative mind, aren't I? That statement alone shows how cynical I've become, which really does worry me. I almost miss my dreamy self. I'm still dreamy, but I've become needy of someone to dream away with me. Anyone want to volunteer? Activities include staring at clouds, talking irrelevantly and yet deeply, and staring at the corners of the night sky trying to see a bit of hope here and there, with the idea that our dreams actually lead somewhere.

I especially would like a companion for the last one, because it seems unsafe to do something like that alone, even if I feel safe in my community a majority of the time.

The night sky really does interest me. I mean, how far can we really see from where we are? And yet, just by trying to look, we see farther than most. It's one of the few things in which one is so easily rewarded just for trying. All of the right words seem to fall out of the sky, bouncing on the earth and whisking away if one's hands are too hesitant. Speed doesn't matter in this equation, for there's no competition, unless everything absolutely must be a race. It's quite a glorious thing to witness, even if perfect peace must be given up for safety, and peace cannot be achieved without safety.

I wish my mind didn't have so many shadows of its own, so it could find shadows elsewhere and fill in the blanks where all of the dark spots are missing. One's own imagination seems bright, at best, even if dark imagination seems to go farther, like the night sky seems to hold so much more weight than the sky of the late afternoon. At whatever time of day, each moment spent in the sky and about the sky is a new mystery, a gift in the seas of the mind waiting to be stumbled upon whenever one is lost in that storm and needs some refuge. It'll never be an island like some things are in life, but it will be that little connection to home that makes one go forward, like fair winds in a bag.

I almost feel like I could have written a poem or something on this topic, but perhaps it's better to leave the mysteries where they belong and my thoughts to rest. They've already been solved anyway, so there's no point trying to pin them down. They're just not like that.