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Cryptid
Was it your lover
you saw in the dream,
a spirit bear on
fire,
or perhaps
the chupacabra, a steam
given off/
absorbed by
too-hot night?
Some cryptid regardless,
a cambion that comes
when eyelids fall down
before the stare of stars
dropped silent with a burn
from black sky
as morning turns to face you
cobra-hooded.
Fragments of him
of you
litter the lawn.
Meteorite dust
hangs in the air;
the smell of old longings
seeps from the roses
powdery as the skin's
memory of a hand
that still feels,
of lips that know words
are the dark subsidence
down which you will tumble
to the place of live shadows
where two become one.
Posted for earthweal's
~September 2014
A little something for All Hallows, originally posted at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
"When eyelids fall down before the stare of stars"......and the "smell of old longings seeps from the roses"...........such fine writing, Joy!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sherry.
DeleteWow. The beautifully dark soft dance with this animist other leaves tingles. A sense of aliveness at the edge of us. A call to which our dreaming mind must respond. Love love love this. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteps...commenting via phone and showing up anon..tis Paul Scribbles.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Paul, for the kind comment and for revealing your identity. ;_) Yours was excellent.
DeleteIn the heart's zoology, cryptids are the unicorn's dream of its paramour, that which is yet can never be, not even in the invisible center of the imaginarium's walled garden. It doesn't even have a name ("some cryptid"), just the hue of its spectra daunting window moonlight. Every note of absence is prescient here, from metorite dust to the grip of a hand at the far end of farewells. Fragments of this beast stare back everywhere, even though we know it's just haunting starlight. The dream within the dream and this poem's daunting jewel. Thanks opening the cages for All Hallows. Let it gleam.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. for catching the diaphanous drift. Sometimes my older work hits me in a particular way that makes it seem fresh to me--I like this one because it is sharp and succinct, unlike so many of my rambling screeds. And yes, it is a thing that is well and truly flapping on the All Hallows wind, and as we know, that comes blowing through the cracks every year.
DeleteWow, Joy, this poem is stunning. I can't work out if it's a love that's too hot to handle or whether it became fireworks and they destroyed each other, it's so ambiguous. But I love the ambiguity. Your turns of phrase are simply so beautiful. These are my favourites:
ReplyDelete"as morning turns to face you
cobra-hooded"
"the smell of old longings
seeps from he roses"
Your writing reminds me so much of Angela Carter's way with words in The Bloody Chamber, it's just the air of gothica that pervades it. Anyway, loved it <3
Thanks so much Sunra. I will have to check out Angela Carter, as gothica is what this witch is all about. ;) So glad you liked it.
Deletethe smell of old longings conjures up so many things. what a spell, your words ~
ReplyDelete