Blue Moon Blood Ringing in My Ears

I turned a deaf ear to the music of the spheres,

Blind to ratio song and measured integers;

Mythic starshine punched big-picture storybooks

Into the sky stained blue-black, like the ink cartridge

That exploded in my mouth when I bit deeply

Into stray thoughts while scribbling third-grade cursive—

Swoops, crosses, and dots blotted, broke, and smeared the will

Of stern instruction patterned on a dull-green blackboard.

This winter’s beat went arrhythmic, and I lost count

To rain pattering crystals on the window panes,

To wordless chatter coldly clicking my teeth,

To sun tease-pulsing the thermometer’s mercury,

To stirred birds twittering a false-alarm spring;

This high-strung pizzicato nightmared my daydreams—

Then my fingers fitfully plucked at bedcovers

As the blue moon squeezed through slats of my shuttered room—

Too close for comfort until coppering reddish.

I opened the blinds; the moon’s shadow man gazed back,

And my blood tuned to a cello’s sonorous warmth,

Mellowing to that ancient call—the tears of things.

Note to readers: I schedule posts a day ahead. What time do you typically read posts? Comments welcome!

7 Comments

Dan Hise on February 7, 2018 at 2:15 pm

Nice “sampling” from Virgil. And a cool trope, to have his tears turn warm and mellow. A special sort of “lunacy.” (Is “solacy” a word?)

I especially liked “nightmared my daydreams.” you are the master of turning nouns into verbs!

I like the mythic starshine, but also all the sounds, the pizzicato, the plucking, the sonorous warmth … and the mellowing. Brava!

7 Comments