Eternal

Tom Mannion

Kuutar

Shimmering moth dusted moon maiden

Her skirts spun from the last of setting sun at the nether of day

Dripping dew tossing up a wake of mist obscuring stars

Night soft and certain bows beneath her slippered feet

I sleep her light upon my cheek knowing nothing of her innocence.

"Moth Queen" by anniestegg.

Artist: Meimaro (Work from their solo exhibition ‘Devotion Bound’) Source: Beatifulbizarremagazine

Fame and Fortune

Whispered making promises I let myself give way

It was easy in my innocence Allowing the Adoration of thousands of fingers Strip the flesh from my desirable bones

Until all that was left of me was Make believe.

-Skye

Mrs. Robinson

Mrs. Robinson

I noticed her reclining in the shadows at the back of room gazing at me

Beware they said she is older than you think

Concerned

She might quiet her gnarled desires with my flesh

I gazed at her in repose

The white flesh heavy in its powder The tinge of desperation Pooled in the corner of her eye

Curious

I wanted her anyway

-Skye

René Gruau

Source: elzamine

Life’s Detritus

Mundane bits of life’s detritus Collected and pressed In a leather-bound book

Bits of butterfly wings Flowers of spring Flowers of high summer A seed or two for good measure

Carefully preserved To revisit later In the twilight When one pulls the bits of one’s Life together Into one last story.

-Skye

Dark Matter

I am in the parking lot Breathing hard My breath traced by floodlight

The night is hooded I have lost the stars I have lost my car keys

I sit on the tar Lost in space

-Skye

Parking Lot, 2018

Photographer: Tartarchuk Nikolay Source: elinka

The Dead Sea

Quicksilver Crystalline Cut with milky sun Salt grows Out of barren Water.

-Skye

Image Source: Brassai, circa1946 Source: letaobloquista

Brassai Roaming Paris

After the churning of buildings and bodies After the round ups of 75,000 Jewish citizens After the ovens to the east stopped their burning

The streets were swept The babies boomed And lovely ladies once again wore real silk stockings

You saw them stop for moment

The baby was sleeping

The headlines were posted Every word shouting LARGE FONT BLACK and BOLD

“Francais! Reveillez-vous!” “Aux Hommes d’Ordre et de Bon Sens”

She gave his arm a Contented almost sleepy Squeeze

Politics was politics again Life was life again

The baby woke up and began to cry.

-Skye

Image credit: Isolation,23.03.2020, 20:25, Source: flowersinthedustbin

Night Windows

In the daytime people are hidden The building keeping secrets Of things done in the living room Or the boudoir

No one privy to ordinary And extraordinary comings and goings

In the nighttime backlit lives reveal Themselves In bright snippets of window light In hazy shadows playing on lowered shades In the soft outlines of darkness

Ordinary And extraordinary Comings and goings For everyone to see.

-Skye

Plague Doctor

So here in the shining city on the hill we watched the broad plain with its shifting grasses always thinking the trouble would arrive at the gate announcing itself.

But no, it crept in in ones and twos broken glass lungs etched in X-rays seeping in under the gate.

We could not fathom the wave of misery that broke us open.

The burbling cry of wet breath that choked the air filling every corner.

We wailed for answers.

The plague doctor came surveying the heaps of dead plying us with platitudes and potions crying “Let them inject bleach!”

Pushing out the dead early in the morning I saw him shambling down the hill.

Empty eyes behind his mask and blood on his hands.

-Skye