Peter Ciluzzi – Lament

Antoine Dufour – Ashes in the Sea

Mystic dance by Gordon Fricker

Echoes of boats

-

So, you sped to the sea
as thoughts formed a Cornish town.
Recollected unshelled prawns
in a bag, bought by the jetty,
flung scraps to tame gulls;
a recast of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”

Heard the sweep swish of foam
against supportive pillars.
Walked along wooden boards,
gaps between, glimpses of barnacles
that clung a Morrison studded belt,
yet lasted longer than any sealife
or doomed dune lizard king.

Sand has filled a child’s buckets
to cover your stray footsteps
a few castle lifetimes since then,

but this old postcard has no stains,
and the Queen reveals only a coffee tan
in the new morning table sun.

-.-

-.-

*¨¨*:•.•:*¨¨*:•.•:*¨¨*:•. •.•

moth, moon directed
undeterred by candle wanes
waxes lunar doodles

Tutankhamen’s remains

 Scoots by the light,
haphazardly crazed
to be drawn near
the lunar cousin it believes
to have discovered.

Darts here, there,
nosedives in curiously
from an angled ceiling;
there has to be, admittedly,
admiration in that agility.

When the flight began,
it can’t tell, peripherally
there’s some night mystery
in why there’s now three
of them.

Three is one more
than can be easily ignored.

Moths!

Moon dust’s a prophetic,
golden palm ending, worthy
of a crumbled Eqyptian king.
Okay, I’m stretching it a bit.

Origins of a song

Imagine if you will, seated
by a fire, before word’s advent,
when imitation an entertainment,
creativity flickered in eyes
that followed sparks.

In the night, who can say
what went through minds
when a child was lost, wandered
from the tribe, first a silence felt,
then a cry sent a tone aloft; voice
more than resonance alone.

A calling to inspire vocals,
orchestrated to promote
the subconscious mind, driven
with no real diction except loss.

Lyrics to lead a lost one
back into the arms of a mother,
her relief becoming a catalyst;
the plains without melody
no longer the only silence of stars.

 
* Collaboration between myself and Sugarmuser.

Quenching a terrace thirst

Waiting in the sun tanned long, cooled,
adrift in this nineteenth century summer,
that’s the day’s lotion dawbed onto this scene.
Colours hewn as bold as rough cut jewels,
lasting display of orange pasted curls
arranging the shutters, closing the frames.

The afternoon turns oblequely, footfalls
against the cobbles that contain the shade,
a street to save the stillness resolved
as a child saves hours. Pleads for more minutes,
before he turns reluctant to bed, slinks past
the chairs that persuade the night’s spark.

Extinguished light that fills up my sentiments
remains believable, spills a blue against the skin
of amber pigment. A primary at this late hour,
as a cooler liquor, anticipation for the next mouthful
under breezes’ comfort. Ovals as tables are stars
dropped from the sky to relieve the chill weight.

One spectrum of dusk is a vibrant, assuring glow,
Vincent, this cafe will display a lantern tonight.

Bird brain

Impatience, that bird won’t wait,
to land upon this comtem-plate.

Yet, it drinks from half the saucer,
builds a nest (this sure aint Chaucer)

Feathers ruffle my hair instead
of flying off to worthier wordier fates,

and just to make the writing worse,
it even tries to peck my v….>O

Then sicks it up with chirped disdain,
and ..erse repeats; oh, to start again.

Of wolves and mermaids

She rode into the town, steered her country.
Solo ochre headlights attracted moths
to her lashed eyes and every day, she walked
over the pavings that made her noticed,
yet she saw nobody turn a glance in her direction.

She made it that way into the next millennium
and onwards into the welcome cornershop
for more cigarettes. They were still necessary,
for at that time, a smoke kept her friends at the end
of a phone line, ordering meals to be consumed
over poignant movie hero themes.

And the talk was fine, it divided the nights from the days.
It made the clock tick by so quietly in the background,
waiting behind the music that possessed the years
that couldnt quite be written down in a locked diary
for any longer.

The time stopped until it was reset for the next hour,
to call her back to the little girl who so wanted to exist
in an easier century, described in three pages left
to read in an Andersen fairy tale.