Birthday Moonsong
Born in the wolf moon,
at century's half-crack,
before the moving shadow box
before the singing pocket, the talking hand--
disjecta membra of a war and peace,
nuclear snowflake crystaled in the cold aftermath,
fallout caught and whirled up
by black arms of concrete
into the sweet dance of chemical fog;
all around me
blackbirds falling
from the sky like almanacs
pages open to the gift of silent prophecy
and in the mirror, a white raven
solitary,
a meal, a target, a danger
a meal, a target, a danger
to the flock, burning the eye like
a scarlet poppy
a scarlet poppy
on a gravemound, or
a working girl unbuttoned
hungover
in the convent.
* * *
In the house
at the edge of the world,
with the wolf moon low in the west,
its yellow eye on the scattering stars,
its tongue longing
for the fat white hams of Venus,
the north wind sleets the window glass
bitter green, rattling the taste
of old snow and bad design; the wolf moon
the hunger moon,
stops to lap
stops to lap
pooled pink from blood-red Mars,
swells its belly
with faltering stars, the small and weak
gnawing them out one by one as I hum
dusting the ape statuettes, the
gnawing them out one by one as I hum
dusting the ape statuettes, the
draped clocks, perplexed still
that the empty chair
stays empty another winter,
while the fire throws white shadows,
while ghosts fall with the snow.
~January 2015
A repost for my birthday.
Images:Wolf Dog, 1976 © Jamie Wyrth Fair Use
The Snow Queen Flies Through The Winter Night, by Edmund Dulac Fair Use
