Pseudo-stargazing

 Missing//The Stars

The sky has shed its mask of clouds

and here below the air drifts

so still, every breeze like a whisper,

Sun’s heat now a sepia-toned memory

tempered by ripples of starlight.

 

Orion nocks a light-tipped arrow,

faithful as millennia past, and

never relinquishing his eternal grip,

trusts it regardless to find its way

down through the melancholy utterings of the moon

like a solitary tear emerging,

unexpected.

The summer doldrums

 Grasping

I’ve been trying

but it’s hard to find more words

to reach back inside the many-layered curtains of my brain

grasp the worn end of a string

and pull it out by my fingertips

still intact,

pulse and all.

Happy Fourth of July!

 The Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays, for a few reasons:

1. Patriotism.
2. Barbecues.
3. Lighting things on fire.
4. Marveling at the star-like quality of things on fire.

 

Trailblazer

On expendable wings it shoots,

a comet in reverse,

springing from the concrete in a lopsided corkscrew

trailing tiny bits of itself

and wisps of burned-up rocket fuel

before reaching the zenith of its flight

in one final, brilliant spray

of showering sparks,

and

abandoning its doomed quest to pierce the clouds,

retracing its path

to the ground,

now just a fluttering scrap of cardboard,

all the fizzling flare drained out of it

to make room for one heck of a story.