Moon Madness

Spring cleaning & I found these poems I started during Shirley Brewer's moon poetry workshop at the January 2013 MWA Baltimore Chapter meeting:

Rave

The music is so loud

it feels like it’s coming
from within, each bass
beat expelled
with my breath. I am
surrounded by neon soldiers
spinning, popping, rocking

nodding. They dance in dreams
fueled by ecstasy & immortality.

I am mesmerized

by the movements
of these modern

day whirling

dervishes, oblivious

to eyes

like mine.

Even the yo-yos

being spun, glowing

on fluorescent strings,

dozens of tiny moons

in awkward orbits,

beguile me.

Disconnect

Do you remember brighter days,

days  when I stayed
close, days when your extended
arms could not be wrapped
around me?

Do you recall those times
so long ago when you could climb
a mountain, and if your heart
was big enough, you could leap
from the peak & I could catch

you in my fullness?

Of course not. We were

so much closer then, back when

you worshiped me, revered me,

coveted my cheese. I loved you

then. But now? Now you have

grown up, grown old, grown

bitter & cynical.

I have become nothing

but cold rock to you.

Painting the Moon

I cried the night I realized
Gustav Klimt had painted

the moon. Before then

it was nothing more

than a ball

of rock, battered & broken,

sterile & lifeless.

And then came Yem,

a muse sent by the moon

itself—sent to show me

that its vitality lied

not in the presence of life

but in the weight

of our souls.

So, for Yem,

I went to art school.

I learned to see the life

in everything—nothing

existed in a vacuum

when I could make it all

breathe.

Like a willo’wisp

returning to woods

Yem winked out

before I could catch

her. Rumors were

she had to go

home, home

to money claiming

playtime was over.

So I mourned

for her. I climbed

to the rooftop and screamed

at the moon until I was raw.

I saw

it then, the face

was Judith’s;

tonight, she held

my severed head,

Holofernes’ rejected.

I cried.

I cried for Yem.

I cried for myself.

I cried most now knowing

everything had life,

everything

but me.