Paris Symphony
Years rolled away, long outstretched roads.
I often remembered a friend,
had thought of reaching out to him, but
years rolled away as I drove mile upon mile
from the town I left, seeking my destination.
I journeyed alone, the car radio filling my reveries
with the Paris Symphony, ebullient and chromatic
carried on turquoise waves rolling up to rounded
cheeks of rocky walls, shiny and wet with high tide.
Waves and music danced in the clutch of some
cosmic agreement, timeless and magic.
Mozart's music, turquoise-hued as the ocean
I dreamily viewed, enveloped me in a seer's veil
and suddenly I saw him, my friend.
In that moment, dropped like a stone
into an eyeless pool, I knew. He had gone,
stepped outside our world for some shimmering shore
beyond the undulating fabric of earthly life
to weave threads of some new existence.
Showtime
Spring, majestic, sudden bright,
floods the garden with new light.
Upstaging winter, bustling bees searched out
fat magnolia buds, nudged them awake.
The path is strewn with purple petals;
crushed underfoot, slicked by nocturnal slugs,
a spent prophecy spilling profuse blooms.
Curtain raised, the sun illumines the lawn
and warmth trumpets the first true Spring day.
Nesting birds steal the limelight, gather stray straw;
waiting in the wings, rumours flit among butterflies,
gaudy costumes displayed on young leaves;
a coaxing promise in mild evening sky
drops deep amber hues into frosty night.
On cue, the opening melody
of a surging symphony rises,
spreads in waves of wild germination
and Showtime begins.
The Lepidopterist
On Karangahake Mountain
he lunged at me like the Mothman;
beware the feathered scales, the hooded claw.
Agitated by scrawl penned by pop psychologists,
pulp for his passions, extolling random kindnesses
set his wings aflutter. He took flight, a turmoil
tumbled in the fire flicker of zeal. Hideous,
I felt the whirlwind, the tickling proboscis,
a pressure wave of tumult.
His shadow fell as dark as night,
boiling with a thousand eyes
to scrape out all my secrets,
a thief licking at the jewel.
I struggled in the net, a cloying web,
a ruin on filmy fern-fringed slopes.
Gathering his spoils for display, preened
pinned specimens garland grim walls
where he peruses pretty wings.
I fought to the death, a shade's memoir
scribed upon the bitter mountain.
The Ferryman waited where I flailed
but I had already paid rich coin.
Cut free of karmic coils, I fled
his grasp, the sticky spooling threads.
And in the evening rays, returning home,
saw the note he had sent, hammered
with anguished scarlet fonts.
Flights, Issue Thirteen, August 2024
Flight of the dragonfly 