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The mockingbird mimics the nightingale moon.
Your fingers smooth my brows beneath the Braille moon.
Open the window in the center of your chest.*
Can you hear the marsh wren sing to the frail moon?
The common loon with its rabid red eyes
will hoot and yodel at the fish scale moon.
Once Killdeer screeched at night from empty lots.
Now their ghosts haunt lovers under this fairytale moon.
When a red-crested cardinal sings at night
does it desire a Holy Grail moon?
Poor Will. Poor Will. That poignant cry in the dark.
No wonder the cow jumped over the stale moon.
The moon is ancient, but flaunts its youthful glow.
Admit it, Susan, you envy that pale moon.
* This line comes from Rumi in Coleman Barks' translation.
Into the night time, baskets of false starts, shredded and torn in the light
of the moon.
Yet in darkness my heart's longings move toward you, love, like wind through
young corn in the light of the moon.
Gentle, malevolent, sluggish and sprightly, the Old Ones, the Others, watch
them all come,
Satyrs and succubi, souls of the blessed, the creatures that swarm in the
light of the moon.
Moths' wings and madness, imago indigo, bleeding like cinnabar, Emperor-eyed;
Watch them through emerald, violet epiphany, their dance on the lawn in the
light of the moon.
Apricot, indigo, olive, vermilion, burst on the retina, daylight shows all,
Beneath the sun colours, Iris's kingdom, but we comprehend form in the light
of the moon.
Now what is that story, the one told to children, cruel, poignant, a
bittersweet yarn?
The nightingale's suicide, self-immolation, her breast to the thorn in the
light of the moon.
Curled up a happy grub, larva undreaming, munching and basking, tomorrow
unknown;
Chocolate and fullness, comfort and pink wine, sheltered and warm in the
light of the moon.
Glamourous evening clothes, sequins and velvet, satin decollete, black crepe
de chine,
Bag them and bin them, life's for the day now, they'll never be worn in the
light of the moon.
Strength can be stolen by thieves in the night time, watch out for Delilahs
and philistines all,
Samson woke dully, sexually sated, his dread locks all shorn by the light of
the moon.
World steeped in violence, the hart's cry is final, hopeless, valiant, we
flinch, turn away . . .
Yet still in a forest glade, mercury-silvered, steps out a young fawn in the
light of the moon.
Lay it on Lucifer, blame it on Satan, matchless in Heaven, ablaze like the
sun,
Serpent's tooth, sulphur breath, feathers of angels, fallen forlorn in the
light of the moon.
With steel and fire, we fly to the moon.
Apollo reveals a new sky from the moon.
Lunar depths house the machinery of gods
in this vast cosmic storm whose true eye is the moon.
Artemis unleashes the arrows of Fate.
With the blood of her prey, she baptizes the moon.
The river returns variations of night.
In untempered song, it reprises the moon.
Lilith would promise you undying life
through venom and lust. She trades lies with the moon.
With no light of its own, it survives each eclipse
while prophets predict the demise of the moon.
Its origin debated, a mystery, unknown;
only I know the how and the why of our moon.
The poet is lost, seduced once again
by the unadorned flash of white thigh 'neath the moon.
A farm-boy who knows every phase of moon
is speechless with a girl under this moon.
That long summer when I turned twelve, I slept
each night under stars and a changing moon.
Sleepless shards strike windowpane and mirror.
What dreams come under brittle light of moon?
Two lovers swear by all the stars above.
Who knows if lovers lie? the Honey Moon.
One lantern at a doorstep, glimpsed through dark,
winks round and welcoming as a full moon.
Old Dog wakes in the middle of the night.
“Where am I?” she barks, “and where is the moon?”
The porch light’s off, the lawn’s aglow. Is this
newly-fallen snow, or the Long-Night Moon?
A curved blade hangs over the morning star —
here’s Venus come to meet her crescent moon.
Never trust a silver face smiling down;
you’ll find it’s nothing but the waning moon.
Come outside, look up and see the bright night
eclipsed. Our earthly shadow blocks the moon.
Magnet or magician, midnight mocker —
who wouldn’t make myth of a Harvest Moon?