Flowers Of The Moon

 

 

 

Flowers Of The Moon

 

 

 

The moon rocked in its cradle

hunched down on its paws

reluctant to rise

 

while the sharpened stars stared

and ice fell like blades

on the night she was born.

 

She wanted flowers,

hands to hold, a round-

bellied pony with liquid eyes

 

but they gave her knives, so

she learned to juggle.

There was plenty of work.

 

 "Stand back." she said,

"I could put out your eye easy

as breathing. I could and I might." 

The moon crept up to

the crossroads.The stars fell asleep.

The knives rose and spun

 

whirled and glittered like

blue ice flying

til one by one they fell

 

from her scarred hands.

"I've no time for this trade," she said,

"where every mistake bleeds,

 

where every hit frightens.

The moon needs a gardener

for roses to grow."

 

March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images; Sunset at the North Pole, author unknown,     Fair Use

Girl Juggling Knives, unknown source via Sunday Muse,   Fair Use

Driving With The Incubus

 

 

 

 

Driving With The Incubus

(Incubus VIX) 

 

 

 

When I first saw you, neither man

nor woman, flesh nor fowl,

you'd brought round the car; a wisp

of sulfur fog hung from the grill.

It snaked up your shoe to your 

black and white smile

 

neither corrupt nor immaculate,

misting my face like tomorrow's shadow.

 

You held the sedan door wide;

I might have walked away but I was young,

and you were the best chauffeur

the devil could find, with

that changeling's face, the hellpit's flare,

 

black peacock eyes and velvet hands

for the gears. You put them

 

over my fog-wet lashes;

 through the holes

in your skin I saw pinpoint stars

as you smoothed the rucked sheets

of my cheek to finger 

the bed of skull so soon to be yours.

 

It was a black car without a brake

made to run the asphalt years

when the heart 

was a cindered highway,

each crossroads a Celtic knot

the devil my driver

til we stood at journey's end,

 

neither man nor woman

nor flesh most foul,

 

incorruptible corruption

tipping at the edge of the wailing abyss

where all I can see

are waning stars,

sulfur skin steaming fog, your

sharp teeth scarlet through

a feral smile.

June 2021

Posted for Fireblossom, at

The Sunday Muse 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: I've written many poems for the incubus over the years. He's always changing his face. You can find them by searching the blog or by clicking on the label "incubus" below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: top via the Sunday Muse Fair Use

Bottom Untitled, © Zdislaw Beksinksi  Fair Use

 

 

 

Moon Prophet

Moon Prophet

The  moon is a white hand on fire,

a skull's sign in the water, candled

on the drowning of night.

At the crossroads, the black dog howls;

six pups suckle and snarl on her scarlet milk.

The wind tastes of dangerous words:

war and righteousness, delicious with chocolate

patriotism.

The moon is burning, and still she knows

the time's come again for poor men to die.

~February 2017 

for real toads

Kerry's Moon  

Image: Shadow With Pelvis And Moon, 1943, © Georgia O'Keefe

Fair use via wikiart.org

Hekate

Hekate

I've stood at the crossroads

for a thousand years, triple faced, staring

down the choice of roads; a goddess, a witch,

one third a woman, till the times revolved

and made me a ghost.

The curse of a god's eye rests upon me

and the curse of birth sits upon thee.

What once was rare now is common;

what once was common has gone

beyond recall, the library of the ocean

emptied scroll by scroll, the old light lost

and sweetness of air. 

I split the directions to give my visions,

six eyes to see forward but none to look back.

What once was rare now is common

the blasphemy of waste, the apostasy of wealth:

the constants which confer the cruelty of power--

and at the last turning, the helplessness of love

consumed in cold fire--

what once was common is only a tale. 

But the dead past behind me I cannot see

and so, poor mortals, I give you witchery.

~July 2016

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Play it Again

(Kerry's God's in Nature)

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Iamge: Triple Hecate, 1795, by William Blake  public domain via wikimedia commons