Cat's Cradle

 

Cat's Cradle

 

 

All that summer you stalked me

with your tiger-flower eyes 

yellow as saffron,

ochre-flecked with 

an unknown pollen,

 

shining

blood-bright in

your weathered face,

and those few words you owned,

more rough than real.

Under the windy moon

light was as fickle and brief

as a glimpse of truth,

a falling star. Fish slid by

like lost ideas

 

dark as omens

beneath the emerald lake

that deepened the closer

I pushed towards shore,

their flat eyes swiveling back,

 

noodled to piscine

laughter;

they waited like me

for the hook

to pull them up.

 

We watched the sun

burn its last amber coal,

and gave back its mirage heat

to the night like the

pave-stones of Babylon,

 

all that jungle summer

when I closed my eyes to time.

May 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets

Poetics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Noodling is fishing for catfish using one's bare hands, and is practiced primarily in the southern United States. The noodler places their hand inside a discovered catfish hole in order to catch the fish...the origin of the term is unknown." ~wikipedia

My compound words for the prompt were moonlight, starfish and sunburn. I also used an abundance of additional ones not carved to order, just for fun.

Images: Night, 1905 © Mikolojus Konstantinus Ciurlionis    Public Domain

Tigridia pavonia 'Aurea" (Tiger flower) photographer unknown, via internet   Fair Use

Into The Everlight

Dear readers, as I mentioned in my Off The Shelf post this month, I am taking one of my periodic  rests from organized blogging, though I will check in from time to time.  I'm leaving you with a short poem until I return on the 26th, then  saturate the internets  and try your patience with daily posts in April. As always, profuse thanks to everyone who reads, and makes this place a regular stop.

Everlight

Last night

I saw the moon

in the everlight

drop the blackbirds' song

like water rolling

off the reaching trees,

unmask her fountain face

open her mouth

and roar the silence

that holds planets--

shattered  hearts of dragons,

 clouds of

stardust whirlpools,

the forgotten boats of gods--

all that dark light

 knows

with spring a-dance behind it,

each spinning clockwork phantom

pinned in  place.

~March 2014

Image: The Starry Night, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh

Public Domain via wikipaintings.org