nightful

rest clemency in this cavern. not a light is burning bright here. still cop a couplet where lines verge on the lunar patrons . . . .lovers . . . .loners . . . .they are meet-mirrors to fish dreams from beyond rhymes, forsake hooks to opaque darkness, stare back into each other’s eyes. and while sanctioned by their kind’s consonance, thus granted veto over arbitrary nomenclature, which, if paid heed, would have readily called the candor of stellar concurrence right and best all this time

but those are stars. their mass parade of needless subsistence in the vast cold advocates chaste hopes. stars campaign as singularities among their scatter and at once enervate the warm flesh subjects by existing longer. so up just there, from much distance, proffering catatonic charm whereby mortal credulity escapes, at last, at divine identification. so like humans, stars cannot always be right; stars are not always the best either. and stars die no less as being spoken of. so to speak, it is not impossible

for an orchard promise of quinces. a hundred marble scorpions creeping on wet stone undersides and ordaining pilgrimage to their plunder. in the shallows along the way, a scoop of filamentous, opaline material to wring out and wear over the hair. in the hand is the hand of the other, whose face is the only one to remember, smile at, hopefully be surprised by in only one lifetime

running ahead of those impish stucco angels, ruses rouse to rummage, then to ruin, because they fail at breaking apart what wants nothing but merging. then the merging act without world witness. then when it is all done . . . .a spring daybreak quiet. an emptied sack’s breath flows toward the crisp shells, dry seeds and yellow peels: love’s little leavings lying at the door left ajar, behind which the origin of all lights never ever goes out

so it is not a total loss if the night is sightless now? a temperate complement to the immense tenebrous open makes a rather resplendent spin by way of luring the fandom back into that whorl of romance, arresting them from other celestine limitations and sleep they will not retrieve, ever, despite the desire . . . .despite the desire

psyche and cupid by antonio canova, commissioned by colonel campbell in 1800

<originally written in february 2025, following an anticipated loss and when only the stars remained>