by Thomas Piekarski
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. — Anne Sexton
1.
The moon eclipsed two nights ago,
Went full the following night.
Everywhere. This time it cries.
Swarmed by battalions of extinct fish
That inky sediment infiltrates its scales,
Mantis, Mantra, Manhattan.
Winter solstice yesterday, light shut down.
Squid squirt ink darker than deepmost
Disconsolate sea cisterns.
Licentious: Libyan land grab gluts headlines.
To avoid wavering amid unnerving quietude
Axis shifts onto men’s worm-eaten
Flesh piled high to be burnt within the hour.
2.
The bellicose rhythm of Lonely Hearts Club
Is no idiom. This is not a place
Where cranks can pray upon the native dead.
The day begins starkly, then migrates
From its woodless crypt like a fat termite.
The starry night loses an axle, veers off,
Gets clouded over. Ten moons glow faintly.
O show me the way back into shadows
Of milky galaxies beyond compromise.
My reach limited only by infinity.
Its best pitch can be rightly deduced
Provided existence weighs in the balance.
Twice betrayed! Once with his father’s demise,
Second by a witch whose love proved guise.