Philosopher By Moonlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philosopher By Moonlight

(A quadrille)

Life is a crinkle in the matrix

lapping at my edges while

ghosts browse the tombstones

eating names. Night covers me

with her firefly illusion

and her singing moon.

At daybreak we fold

like painted fans 

of Shaolin warriors, all

landscapes

and paper-covered blades.

May 2022

posted for dVerse Poets

Quadrille #153

Process Note The Steel or Iron Fan: The Chinese have a saying regarding weapons, “The shorter it is – the more dangerous.  The more ordinary looking, the deadlier it is.”...The steel fan is ...easy to carry and is inconspicuous.  When the weather is warm, you can use the fan to cool yourself and chase the flies away.  When you are in danger, you can use the steel fan as an effective weapon for self-defense because the ribs are made of steel...The fan is considered an “internal” weapon, because it uses the “soft” to overcome the “hard” and the short to overcome the long...”

Images: Philospher Illuminated by the Light of the Moon and Setting Sun, 1939 © Salvador Dali 

Fair Use

Shaolin Iron Fan, artist unknown, via internet Fair Use

In The Still

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In The Still

 

 

In the still

of the silenced

so deep, I can hear

the gestation of dew, 

the guard-bird's desperate heart

at her nest, the moth's sibilant fumbling

where she lays her last egg;

 

yet not the padding

soft-footed sleep

that carries us empty

into tomorrow.

May 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's Lessons from the Wild

hosted by Sherry Marr 

 

 

 

and dVerse Poets'

Quadrille 

by sarahsouthwest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Night Hill, © Andrea Kowch All Rights Reserved to the Artist   Fair Use

Remember, © Zdzisław Beksiński        Fair Use

 

 

Season's Whisper

 

 

 

Season's Whisper

(A Quadrille)

 

 

Birds falter

from the sky. Kapitans cry.

Bodies lie,

blind eyes on streets

rubbed down to bone.

 

Still

the season whispers.

 

Living wings fly,

buds swell like grief unbound.

The wilding wind 

knows nothing

of our long drown.

 

The season whispers.

Life is found.

 

 

April 2022 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets:

Quadrille

and 

for earthweals' weekly challenge:

Radical Hope

Note: "..Kapitan is a commissioned officer rank ..in..the NATO officers rank system..[adopted by Ukraine,]used to specify commanding officers of company-sized units..."~wikipedia

Images:Detail of Scene in Bucha, Ukraine, April 2, 2022 after Russian retreat, ©Reuters/Zohra Bemsemra, cropped to sepia,  Fair Use

Magnolia buds against March tree canopy, 2016, © joyannjones

 

Quadrille Of The Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Star

 

 

I wrote this for you when

you were the star in my heart

to give back light for light

as we traveled time's tempest

bemused. 

 

Who knew then

you were the last;

 last star before the sunrise,

last ghost spun

from the broken wheel

 

 

 

 

 January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets:

Quadrille

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Winter Night In The Mountains, © Harold Sohlberg  Fair Use

Paysage Orangeux, artist unknown, via internet    Fair Use

 

Positions

 

 

 

 

 

Positions

 

 

You sleep flat in

the fire of all that was

and never burn;

ice doesn't.

I sleep on

the ashes; a body in

a prehistoric grave,

with stones, ivory rings

and broken pots,

curled tight to shield

all the soft things

that rot away.

 

 

October 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Quadrille Night

at dVerse Poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Bronze Age Pot from prehistoric burial, Southern Urals © Finn Shrieber  from article 

Neolithic skeleton of a woman, from 4500 year old burial in Germany, by Archaeros, from article

 Fair Use

 

Stone Alive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone Alive

 

 

Deep 

in the night-colored morning,

far from your 

gravitational pull, your need, 

your wailing hustle that

flickers like sleet,

 

I dream

the lives of stone,

the green

absolute monotony

of warmth.

 

I drift

in the memory of

their breath,

alive among the 

sleeping.

October 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Quadrille #137

at dVerse Poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Stones, © Ivan Shishkin    Public Domain

Colonial Graveyard at Lexington, 1891 © Childe Hassam   Public Domain