Moon Phases

panning for gold in driveway gravel, an industrious escape from the mind. A glimmer, false hope, what did I expect to mine? sifting stones as memories, these pebbles are more than pearls, than precious jewels.  the sandbox of my spirit, shifting - entropy crumbles mountains to rubble, but cannot destroy what it finds. Moon rides high, tonight, pulling hearts like tides and dragging silver trails behind on its wedding night. The moon in its futility races west to east, but looks like east to west. I'm sifting pebbles from my pile of gold, is the moon's existence mine?

I can only hope to reflect light so bright, hopefully with more consistency. 

It's a limbo I feel, a between time. Like I have five minutes until an appointment, but nothing I can finish, or start, in those five minutes. I'm tractionless, racing forward-backward like the moon, and doing so in circles. How, after Eden, could Adam and Eve settle for less? No choice, there was no choosing perfection, anymore. I see what, to my eyes, was close, but beyond reach. 

Oh, such tiny arms and lofty dreams.

A plan, then? Or destiny?

I'll sigh until you hold me high

Love? Or I'm deceived.

Broken glass between each toe

shark's teeth and barnacles

chances in a mantis hold

No, this is what it means

carpet rides on starry nights

daisies on a bed

of downy grass and reading

poems sweetly singing

of mountaintops and raspberries tasting

moonlight in your hands gossamer

as gliding swans

tiptoeing across ponds 

silver, holy night

slipping into a shell to see 

the sea tides whisper gently

press your hand to mine

and jarred awake, a dream

an electricity.

in beginnings a death

in ends: retreat

opportunity or perfect impossibility

love's broken like the moon

Now, every puzzle piece fits poorly, inadequate. Something always wrong, and standing out like a thorn in the thumb, scarlet stains on white cloth, oil on the ocean, burn patches on the ground, barrow in a field of flowers, vulture in a flock of doves, weeds in fields of corn. But even perfect blue eyes sparkle with flecks of gold, flowers grow in street cracks, and in the darkness there's a moon, sometimes.

Candle

candle

match struck, then a burst of flame, 

will this candle chase why away? 

a riddle at night, now 

a morning mystery, 

I see how this ends

in week disarray. 

when you are west, east is far; 

moving north, the south I'm missing 

disappears. winter: warmth removes, 

summer sun's no closer. 

flicker, please, vanilla star -
wish this distance near.

dreams just tiny highways

ideas our little cars

drive with me awhile.
wind rustles your beautiful 

hair, touches your lovely

grey-sky eyes I'll never see

voice your love

songs, the radio plays 

hand me your heart-

felt emotions. I'll listen, listen

as we are one

distant dream.

NaNoWriMo

Entrance the Doctor

“Doctor!”

The doctor was not sleeping; he never slept these days. But waking? That was another trial entirely, and he felt his days. And his nights were plagued with dreams.

“Doctor!” the voice shouted again, banging loudly against the front door.

                Who could it be at this hour of the morning? The doctor grumbled and rolled into a sitting position. And where was his butler?

                “Who’s there?”

                “Simon Temple,” the voice called. “There’s an emergency at the central dome. You’ve been summoned!”

                Simon Temple? Who was that? That new guy in town, was it? What was he being summoned for – how could he help in an emergency? What time was it?

                “I’ll be right down,” the doctor called, groaning and rubbing at his eyes. He picked up a slice of the tree-fruit he’d left at his bedside, cure for aching limbs. Though his limbs did not ache, he felt they should, and took the necessary precautions. Age thrived more in his head than his flesh.

                If they needed a doctor, then the prophetic utterance had held true. A murder then, two.  

                Lighting a candle in the saucer near his bedside, the doctor slipped on his slippers. Shadows danced against the wall in the flickering flame, turning ghoulish simple shapes, and inane items into nightmares.

A perfect garden with a poisoned pool; an unblemished faun dying, suddenly, from some uncaught sickness; an eternal lush field, flower-full and yellow-green with luxurious grasses, suddenly bursting into flame, a volcanic maw opening and gorging on the meadow.

The stuff of dreams danced along the walls in sinister shadows, and the doctor sat motionless as a mouse struck by the screeching owl, muscles deaf to motion.

“Doctor? Are you coming?”

                “I’ll be there shortly. Run on ahead and let them know I’ll be coming. I need to collect a few things first.”

                The doctor rummaged through his closet, picking out his whites and surgeon’s mask. 

This is actually a passage that I'm not writing. So it won't actually be in the story. 

Inspector

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is

Shun the tree---

Where the apple reddens

Never pry---

Lest we lose our Edens,

Eve and I.

~Robert Browning - A Woman's Last Word

The city bled an efflorescence, golden on the blur of night - a phoenix death, embers until the resurrection of morn, where new creation begins, and begins again. It was a strange thing, a death in undying lands, and the city's edenic appearance burned with a burr of color, a drop of poison dye in crystal water.

The inspector rolled into the city on a stagecoach hearse-black in the funereal palette of night. A land of shadows, everything flickering in surreal beauty: even in darkness the city emit an elegance, a face of perfection.  But the inspector was locked deep in thought, irregular in his introspective ignorance of the passing scene: dewy, white limestone streets; glass and rose-chalcedony architecture, purple saffron exuding a metallic honey scent. 

What were his thoughts, then, the dark-clad man in the long cloak and navy wool scarf, bundled, despite the balmy morning – what were his thoughts? He took a deep drag on a thin-brown cigarette, a relic of the distant past, and considered.

I haven't written a story for some weeks, and certainly not a longer story for some time. I'm excited to get back into the swing of things. I just finished the last of the Sylvia Plath I was given: Ariel. She's quite astounding, and I truly wish I could write half so well - a third so well. I started and finished one of Mary Oliver's poetry books, and wow! She's amazing, too! I guess there's a reason she won the pulitzer, huh? Maybe if I live to be as old, I could write such fascinating things. 



Shell
Still the ships passing, seas overhead
Here I hear no waves
Whine of whales, clamp of clams
Sunlight bleeds the deep sea red
Swim near, rescue me
I'm a man, not an oyster
Believe.
Bolstered are my emotions when
Strange though it seemed
Divers dove down closer
Rescue, rescue me!
I'm in truth a man, you see.
Their gentle hands brushed the sands
Lifting me from the deeps
Oh, you've come, I'm saved, I'm saved!
But lifting me from the sea,
they pried my mouth I'd clammed up tight
wresting, divesting my pride
lobbed me back into the deeps
I don't mind, though
my soul they keep
As long as they left
my humanity.

Composition

Why the mountains beneath the sea? They are birds in a cave, in a cage, was the sky not made for thee? I'm worried, reaching into a hive of bees, looting nectar from venus' barbed maw. Well? I'm a flying hawk who cannot land, cannot see, legs broken, heavy beneath, but with the wind brushing my hair? I don't care, really I don't care, tell me not to care. The beautiful hair, I cannot run. Nothing for to run no more. I'm flying.

Today my reading was all over the literary sphere. I read poetry by Sylvia Plath (so incredibly talented, so intensely macabre); a long essay regarding ADHD and educational differences; Jane Kenyon poetry; a little fantasy novel, some mystery/sci-fi; some comedy; some news. Mostly poetry. I'm fairly certain my technique for learning poetry is flawed in nature, but for a beginning it is a fascinating endeavor. I'm simply gorging on poetry, consuming entire novels of poetry in hours, or less, and writing all my favorite lines and images.
It is a gluttonous abuse of reading speed that ill-considers the delicate work spent in craft. My apologies, artists. I must consume. I constantly feel as though I'm running shy on time, as though I must capture every adventure, every moment, and drag them deep into my soul.
I have a friend who learned countless orchestral instruments, hoping to compose. He said that most, many of the greatest composers died young, and he understood why. It is the same with me. I understand the drag of perfection, the standard against which I compete and never shall beat. And I understand how far I must travel. I'm running a race where every other entrant started hours before me. How will I ever catch up? I'll never stop.
Everyone might write better yet, might think, see, intuit, understand better now. But not forever, not for long. It is almost my time to compose.

Story Writing Mode = Less Blogging I Suppose

Well, what is there? Again and again they ask questions of time, and I've no response. Time is slippery as shadows, as sure as blood in water - stop it, slow, if you may, you'll only gain bloodied hands. And you? Share your heart and I'll shed mine. Emotions, doctor, is it cancer then, this fire within? Only burning sin, killing your insides out. May it never continue so, but on I go, on I go, my breadbin into hell. What gains he who sells his very soul for a pittance of fool's gold? Nothing.
Please, distance as wind to wind, opposite walls of solitary prison. I can hear you think but not breathe, love but not sing, dream but not speak. If we shed these skins and skim the sky, fly not so high, dear, we're on Icarus wings. If must we fly so high, take me, and let's fall as one. How, how such wide eyes, Eckleburg? Green, then? Green as the american dream? Or dollars? Or icy green, on pine tree leaves, frozen in the frost of morning?

I cheated today. I finished some of my first chapter of NaNoWriMo. I didn't want the restriction of NaNoWriMo, but wanted the motivation. I longed to write a story, but not within the exclusive bounds of November, and I got a bit overexcited for the beginning of this one. This one is also different in that I'm co-authoring the endeavor. I'm already feeling the strain on my other writing and reading. It can't be helped, can it? Time to return to story writing mode...

urbanity

A chaos of our own devices, devising, a congested scene. What senses left can assuage this assault? When kissing, often couples close their eyes. Is it a deeper delving into the euphoria of touch? Or a deflection of sensory overload? So too am I now. Closing my eyes and feeling: the earth pounding beneath my feet, stifled and asphyxiated; shapes passing within inches, closer, unemotionally scraping; a lost wind, whirling about the plaza in directionless anxiety; honking, screeching, pained impatient, boisterous, agitated, metallic bodies whir only paces beside with reckless speed. Voices, voices, the distant river sloshing into the sea, creaking of concrete and overhanging roadways - even the birds, the ravens, are strangulated, singing simpering songs and clashing pieces of trash in their beaks.  Rook to pawn, check, cities as sanity's chess game, internalized, slow, and deliberate.

Faces, faces, here and there, passion, distance, creative flair, drowned in the dizzying, everywhere

Ravens wheedles through the sky

landing by

Pauper home, no fields his own

rook to pawn

Down the street clattering near 

churches here

horses

steaming breathe in dawn sunlight

bishop knight 

And night doth fall, shadows tall

Over sculpted monument,
an ancient lord whom men afford

little notice such aged things

long dead kings

the queen of time a deadly crime

check

blithe people milling 'round

lost or found

a mated death, check, king's last step

taken, then he falls 

Driving into the Valley

Turning on my brights, descending down the Shins road, this light only accentuates an eerie twilight splendor. Another world we've entered here, shadow shapes in charcoal replace what daytime placed before - robust pines are hefty arrowheads, rolling hills are timeless, cresting waves, milky moonlight falls over a maple explosion, captured and frozen in a moment of firework display, and houses pleasant during sunlight droop into witch hovels, strobed in the lightning of my headlights. It is a spectacularly fae land, celtic and mysterious, that bowls this gentle valley of home. Mists burbling over the hilltops and sliding over bald peak are a breath caress against the window of night. I've never, may never, know such love.
Crawling, creeping, clawing, time comes with clandestine fervor, covert against the clamor of daily motion. Stop and breathe, please, or in brief steps, breathe in this living day, love this beautiful clay of people. An extravagance, then, this life. The first great grey in a season-wide eternity of such. Gun-metal skies swallowing this year, and crying tears mourning the lost clothing of trees.