Nocturne

So far, I've shown the birthday poem and "Apples" - these and the following poem (and more) are now going to be polished so I can submit them to magazines, contests, etc. as a summertime/yearlong project.

Nocturne

Tonight – the livid gauze that swings slowly; Hung.

Rope ripped round the column – limp – free –

And poison flowing like acid veins with the flesh peeling off them,

And scorched graves scratched in the dirt like so much nightshade.

Tomorrow, the pen as it carves, spurts ink and depicts

The torn edges of these stitches splashed blackberries.

It is the hoarse whisper of word-waterfalls,

The paper wrapped sickly round the lacerated arms, the arcing punctures.

Night’s frantic blindness – breathless –

Pressed struggling; Breathes a new dizzying array of sparks

Behind eyes: lungs: lips,

Starry with sleep, reluctantly closed.

And now, night’s peak of brightest, orange-tinted silence

Brings the healer’s numbing hand to the abrasions bloated with mold,

Brings the silk orbs, strings of pearls, bitter as milk –

And always those blank white faces, those velvet capes, those piles of feathers,

Falling on us –

To leave behind, valentines forgotten: remainders of the sun.