Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Esther Jun 2013
It's near
I can taste Metal
Moldy food overwhelming my nose
The Fox creeps around
Bringing night and ruby gone
Overpowering
Lying in a street
shot dead
Moonshadow Alone

It's here
After so many years
Finally the pain will be gone
The Lamb comes softly
Bringing peace and beauty sigh
Wonderful
Lying in a chair
sleeping dead
Moonshadow Alone
Adellebee Jul 2019
The moon is so bright tonight
The black velvet sheet of the night
is riddled with stars

Patiently waiting, for lightyears to come
For us to see the stars light fade
Until we can not wish upon them
And the sky is sure to turn to shade
moon light
Pixievic Jan 2016
Lady Moon
You wax & wane
You play your game
With tide & mood
Emotions high
In cloudless skies
My pending thoughts
Become unglued

(C) Pixievic 2016
Anais Vionet Jun 2022
I’m crushingly sentimental, you might not know, I don’t let it show, but it’s true. I’m walking in the moonshine and moonshine is how I feel - I’m intoxicated - by you.

Some nights when I can’t settle - I walk - and find myself outside your dorm. Your light’s on tonight, everything’s right, when you're a few feet away safe and warm.

I’ll wait a while, in the windy cold, the crunchy snow, deep in the sharp blue moonshadow. When people pass by, I look down at my phone - oh, don’t look at me, there’s nothing to see or do.

A walking girl, a stalking girl? Lingering, at 2am, drunk with desire, yearning somewhere inside for the ephemeral closeness of you.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Ephemeral: "lasting a very short time."
Cori MacNaughton Sep 2015
The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind

The city sirens come undone
before the ocean spray
then down the hill to U.S. 1
and thus begins the day

The Pier receding to the South
Will Rogers to the North
Topanga is the turn we seek
as we are going forth

The starkness of the hills and pines
the rivulet below
as Westward the Pacific shines
beneath the morning glow

The twists and turns I still recall
though roads are better now
no unpaved sections left at all
nor farmland for a cow

No Austin Mini Union Jack
the landmarks too have changed
and I so lost since coming back
I almost feel deranged

The Health Food Store with hitching post
the horses canter past
the countryside I love the most
and visit now at last

But on Mulholland Highway there
surprises lie in wait
there’s razor wire on the fence
and horses at the gate

As giant dishes aiming deep
into a mountain wall
so Orwell’s promise do we keep
applying it to all

But I remember still the day
the hillside turned to fire
the way to turn had burned away
the sky was black with ire

And in a wide spot in the road
in reverence did we stand
a fox, a hare, my dog and I
all watched the burning land

Can nothing make us feel as small
as fire pure and cruel?
to know it as a cunning foe -
to know we’re naught but fuel

But through the smoke a fire truck
led us down on Kanan Dume
toward the cleaner seaward air
away from certain doom

And all at once the trial was o'er
for we had reached the sea
as once Carrillo had before
and now my dog and me

We pass the house of river stone
Moonshadow’s Restaurant
and even Tidepool Gallery
for years my favorite haunt

And back to Santa Monica
on PCH we drive
admiring still the beauty
yet more thankful we’re alive

The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind
I thought I had posted this before, but apparently not: I am posting it now as a native Californian, for all those affected by the terrible wildfires this year and every year, with love, prayer and hopes for the safety of all.

I wrote this poem in January 2001, but it refers to a trip back to California that I took with my then-husband in 1994, and to the two separate wildfires I drove into unknowingly in the late 1970s; the first in Topanga Canyon, and the second in Malibu.  It is the second fire that is described in the poem, and although I traveled with my dog frequently, she wasn't actually with me that day - but the rabbit and fox really were.
martin challis Sep 2014
Axel, who never had a rocking horse, once rode a bright blue tricycle. He called it his ‘Athenian Rhapsody’. He loved to play the tuba in bed, and when he was feeling particularly happy, would sit on the loo in the outside shed, pants around his ankles oompa-pa’ing till the cows came home.

That was quite a while ago; the tuba and the tricycle have gone, yet he can still hear the triangle sound the bell made on his tricycle, and still remembers the scraping of the old keys on the ancient tuba.

Axel listens to old sounds very well (all the time): he loves Bach, Mendelssohn and Donovan. He loves to eat crumpets with honey and drink a large white mug of milky tea; it reminds him of summer fishing trips to Lake Eucumbine, mushrooms and gnats in the full-sun morning air, (he loves to talk fishing when he’s playing chess with Carl the orderly, often quoting from his favourite magazine, ‘Modern Fly Fishing’).

Axel was once an expert at fly fishing; tying the ‘super moonshadow’ to perfection (he named the fly after what he thought was a Donovan song, written by Cat Stevens).

When the hospital staff remember to buy him a new box, Axel loves to drink Lady Grey tea made from tea bags, he prefers tea bags, he feels that somehow they bring clearer definition to tea making.

Axel thinks a lot about definition, noting how the edges of his bed are very clearly defined by the clean-blue hospital blankets that drop suddenly to the ocean of the grey linoleum floor. He likes the smell of cleanblue, it’s somehow a new sea to sail and sometimes the feel of his favourite jumper when he was a boy: a definite edge of beginning and end. He knows that soon he’ll cross the floor-grey ocean, sailing under a white sheet. But this is not a thing Axel dwells on for very long, he prefers to think of such things as his next chess move and flirting with Miriam the night nurse.



Axel has just beaten Carl in a game of chess. He’s said goodnight to Miriam, a long quiet goodnight, a good long, good night. He won’t wake again, he senses this  –  and is peaceful.

When his last breath comes he hears; a faint scraping sound and a single precious note from a triangle bell on a bright blue tricycle.

They’re good sounds.

They are old sounds.

They bring him…
izzy w Dec 2011
Emily wants to be a Prince when she grows up.
Emily knows that wind comes from trees waving their branches
when they dance to sunsongs, stirring the air up,
and when Emily looks at the beach she knows
that seals are just narwhals without horns
and narwhals are just unicorns that forgot to get on the Ark
when God drowned the world in His tears
(so He gave them tails instead of hooves
and let them swim in all His misery forever).

Emily parts her hair on the side
so she can be a Prince when she grows up.
She parts her hair on the side and wears leggings
and a little green hat and runs bare-chested
through the forest catching fairies

and on clear nights Emily can see her moonshadow
and they dance together, four and forty feet tall.

Prince Emily has a cardboard castle.
It used to be a house but Emily took some crayons
and drew herself crown moulding and flower boxes
because she wants to be a Prince when she grows up
and she took that box and brought it
under the electric fence
and past the cow field to the
(rapidly disappearing
on account of those
mysterious trucks
that drive by at night)
forest and to her
very favourite
spot

by the stream.

Maybe she’s there right now,
looking at the water and wishing it would ever
even in the summer grow warm enough to swim.
Maybe she’s there right now,
with her chest bare and her hair blonde
and her eyes huge and blue
and her face messy with berry juice
because there’s no-one to tell her
to wipe her chin
and no-one to tell her
to grow her hair long
like the other girls.

So Prince Emily parts her hair on the side
and talks to Peter Pan and Robin Hood
and her own shadow
and sometimes
God.
Akira Chinen Jul 2017
And I blame the likes of JM Dematteis and Jon J Muth
for writing and Illustrating The Complete MoonShadow
so perfectly well
and Charles Baudelaire for leaving behind
his flowers for all the world
to smell the evil within their roots
and for Blake for his reeds and his tiger
and his heaven and hell
and for freezing eternity so we might all catch a glimpse
and for Bukowski and Hunter
for turning ugly truths into something beautiful
we could all enjoy hating
and for Shakespeare and Gaiman
and the dreams they weave
into the fabrics of our soul
and for the devil and temptation
and for god and shame
and for the laughter of children
and the tears of the grieving
who will never hear their children laugh again
and for those that paint
something beautiful out of all the pain
that they feel and see in the world
and the melancholy who sit high up
in dead tree branches to hang the moon
and the stars in the dark of the night
so the rest of us dont have to be lost and alone
in the lonely hours between sleep and dreams
and for each painful breath
that reminds me where love once lived
in my chest and each joyful sigh
that reminds that I'm still alive
and that somewhere between the shadows of doubt
and the glimpse of brief moments of hope
I still might find a seed shaped
like a heart beating  to plant in my hand
and sew over my chest
and I can meet death
with love still living inside the cold ground
where my body will rest
I want a sunset to the end of my day
I want to dance with a moonshadow
I want a river to enter my lake
I want an earth that quakes

I need a life hummingbird blue
I need a spiritual blessing
I need the warmth of a stranger
I need  just the mystery of you

I see the questions as unimportant
I see that there is nothing
I see that there can be everything
I see all that in the stranger of you
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2017
i find it discouraging to adhere to atheism, namely due to the fact that atheism argues against: mental disorders and finds too much infantilism in a debate worth having... what is so ******* infantile, when the actual infants don robes, fake catholics, and their fake kippah in the form of a zucchetto... or the humbling hair-cut known as the monk's fried egg of scalp: tonsure? the clergy pretend being jews... i'd prefer to talk to a jew about the jew-fakers.

i still find it unimaginable with respect to islam:
how can you be so audacious calling
a religion "original", then the blatancy
of plagiarism is rife in it?
      what is original is the immediacy of the schism,
now, that **** is original...
it was going to happen,
           the persians were always going
to call the arab sand-****** camel-jockeys out
when the chance came...
            it was unavoidable that the persians
would answer the arabs:
           you seem to have mistaken us...
we're above you!
          we have a longer history!
            we cherish art, not sand dunes!
you ******* quick-clipped dunces!
         islam is original in only one aspect:
the quickness of a schism -
  besides that? it's audacity dies a sudden death...
how can you replace satan the apple
and imagery metaphor whatever you like
and woman: with a mere japanese etiquette
of saying hello?
                                 come on,
let me counter that...
                 it's not that satan didn't bow before
adam when asked...
                           let's revise that:
when god asked satan to join the choir
   he was like: you don't preach to even one
member of the choir!
       satan didn't refuse to prostrate himself
before adam, he refused to sing for god.
             the logic was:
                 an elephant stepped on my ear
from hearing you talk, dear Elohim...
i found like a bent trumpet...
                        i'm baritone and can't sing
in tune with the other angelic *****... oops...
or oops bounce twice then twice oops...
take it or leave it...
         i'm sure you'll find ample volumes
of cat stevens down on earth...
   mm mm... shoo shoo, or is that sufi?
  lightbeam followed by a moonshadow,
leaping and hopping on a moonshadow,
and if i ever lose my hands...
   i will not have to work again,
my eyes,
  colours run dry...
away away, hey hey, away,
i will not have to cry no more...
                         the part where you try to be
funny is synchronised by the realisation
that you're not being smart...
        or perhaps the smartest thing
every attempted was done by an intelligent
man: pretending to be an idiot...
    i never know which is true.
the ridiculousness of islam is its blatant
plagiarism...
                     i don't know how they got
away with it for so long...
     at least the greeks disguised the tetragrammaton
in the accounts of st. matthew, mark, john & luke...
which means that two of these four
accounts are almost identical, resembling H...
           i have to admit islam has a number
of + inventions,
       like washing your hands and feet and face
but leaving the genitals dirrrrr't'e...
                            for the puritanical thinking,
shouldn't we wash those areas
before praying / imagining a deity?
                    it's just the blatant plagiarism that's
so ******* glaring,
            i can't stand the audacity of treating
a plagiarism as the original,
a tactic employed to replace the original with
plagiarism...
                 and some sand-people trying to
topple over the persians... like the persians
would budge... like **** they would...
             i'm actually happy in reading into
the history that the schism didn't happen for
theological reasons, other than how:
un-honourable the prophet was in the affairs
of family bonds...
                                a prophet of breaking
promises...
                             best to have promised
jack-****, or in the least: an exhausted mule.
- and like i once said,
  if the ****** was illiterate...
who wrote the first verses of the koran?
wasn't it the highly literate *khadija
?
     might as well invoke the second H since
you're going to surd the first one, i.e. khadijah...
didn't she write the first verses?
                       i could write many odes
to this women, who was turning in her grave
once the illiterate son of a goat
started becoming a spoilt brat, audacious,
  and unlearned in her teaching him of
the authenticity of being a merchant...
     i'm just rubbing my hands,
waiting for the fat scoff pigs of arabia to
sip their last drop of oil and start playing:
the fiddling thumbs game.
Mary Anne Norton Feb 2022
Moon shadow dancing
Just keeping me up at night
Chasing blues away
Mark Kelley Feb 2019
“The Accidental Caretaker”

The accidental caretaker
has found his way back home
He's traveled far and traveled wide
to find his birds have flown
The western wind will tell the tale
of journeys he has known
and all along the rugged road
his destination known

The accidental caretaker
will leave here once again
He's always heard the siren's song
somewhere 'round the bend
down along the waterfront
he'll find his journey's end
the moonshadow will lead him on
to find his long lost friend

The accidental caretaker
has put away his shoes
his time is done for spotlights filled
with other people's blues
He's found a place to hang his hat
and listen for the news
of how and why and where and when
he'll pay his final dues

The accidental caretaker
has found his way back home
He's traveled far and traveled wide
to find the words he'd known
The waves will crash, the sun will set
on journeys he has known
and all along the rugged road
his destination known
his destination known
Payton Hayes Mar 2021
He creeped in through my window,
the moon’s shadow peeking softly
while I slept, watching, observing, guarding
a neither malevolent nor benevolent thing
just existing, in his own orbit, pulling the tides,
serving his purpose, being.
This poem was written in 2019.
PK Wakefield Jan 2015
dead what's it ?
inside the clasped lid
of never to part darkness
inching each breath
presses
pressing
with each breath
towards that titanic chasm

(into which leaps
every humdrum
scintillating eruption
of drab being)

I cannot imagine
anything more absurd than
perhaps ******* or sitting
outside on the pale veranda
of a minute café
tucked into the
silent crease of
a dying city


the light stroking
carelessly the **** soil
boils
with extremely sleepy
afternoon
every where–

and occasionally
a child
can be heard
murdering silence
with its long shriek
of rapid youth–

i wonder and play.
my hands neatly in the comely foil.
i bend and kern
each brilliantly lashed
marvel of coalesced laughter–

a tiny poem is sitting
slant wise their
across thighs
with deliberate health
of constant ***–

there is a mountain hurled
studiously *****
aggressively swept
by moonshadow
and nightdust:          (amongst the reeds

                                     a tired frog

                                      is lilting


across the ether
its ancient song           ) I wonder,


can you hear it to
ever think
upon the frail note
of its enormous throat
that to live is to die
constantly as–


a truck turns south
into the friscalating
dusklight its shadow
is minute;

and how can it
the insane probability
that we naked forevers
might suddenly be
in each distilled
anthem of terrible life,
the brute
the heap
of chaff
off from the stock
reaped by unthinkable hands

(but i think and i wonder
and my hands play amongst the
cool beds of immortal rivers
endless coils of blinding self
Akira Chinen Mar 2017
And I blame the likes of JM Dematteis and Jon J Muth for writing and Illustrating The Complete MoonShadow so perfectly well and Charles Baudelaire for leaving behind his flowers for all the world to smell the evil within their roots and for Blake for his reeds and his tiger and his heaven and hell and for freezing eternity so we might all catch a glimpse and for Bukowski and Hunter for turning ugly truths into something beautiful we could all enjoy hating and for Shakespeare and Gaiman and the dreams they weave into the fabrics of our soul and for the devil and temptation and for god and shame and for the laughter of children and the tears of the grieving who will never hear their children laugh again and for those that paint something beautiful out of all the pain that they feel and see in the world and the melancholy who sit high up in dead tree branches to hang the moon and the stars in the dark of the night so the rest of us dont have to be lost and alone in the lonely hours between sleep and dreams and for each painful breath that reminds me where love once lived in my chest and each joyful sigh that reminds that I'm still alive and that somewhere between the shadows of doubt and the glimpse of brief moments of hope I still might find a seed shaped like a heart beating  to plant in my hand and sew over my chest and I can meet death with love still living inside the cold ground where my body will rest
I can never sit down and write about something or anything specific its always a pen and a page in a sketch pad or a keyboard and a blank screen where it all unfolds unexpectedly and I can only watch in horror and anticipation as whatever falls out splatters across the page... I prefer sketching in ink, detailing in pencil and then ******* everything up with color and paint and leaving 97% of everything unfinished... somethings lead to words and some words leave to images...
Surrounded
by a multitude of
stars
moon never turns her
face
away from earth
ashamed
of her
dark side
Andrew Jul 2022
Beside the stream
of eternity, the long cliffs
march into the unknown;
Every rock and pebble sings
Thunderous and wild.

Within the forest of time
On branches of moss and ivy
Sits the old ancient owl;
Waiting for the small quiver
Of a mouse in hazy moonshadow.

Beyond the gardens of stars
An emptiness quakes and yearns
For flowers to be born
For mountains to break and bleed
And sing and cry.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2020
Feeling a bit un attached,
how can that make sense if I belong
to the universe?

Of a mind to make an adjustment,
in the being… I am.
Matters not my own are immaterial,
at this point.

You are, I am, we be.
Hippy dippy nay ifity - leave me

distributed decision making based on
next to ifity

My family is under redesign, stage one,
agreeing to remerge.

- I suggest we move from consume
- to use, as our approach to life.
Engineer a catch.
Miss a mark, make the modifications on
relationships point to point…

The ideal machine for living, are we
seriously,
pursuing a machine that makes us
aliens?

The dymaxion pod, is not to be that,
it is to be a place of independent
living with the life support
system in thoughts
uninterruptible,

build me a bubble, I may enter or exit
at will, volitionally drudge proofed
allowing
free-at-lasticity.
Warmed and washed with the best
homelessness un tethered
living system

ever
devised in a wit. One. One wit
worth all you own.
All you call mine,
to yourself.

Let go. Witchanow, watchaknow --

No quest for phunishing truth, is
perfectly painless.

Mass education reinforcing
conformation,
failed.
-- at year '68, there is a test, I was warned.
Fifty years later, I learned the art of
saying semper fi, no lie, in reply
to Marines's silly boo-jahs.
-----
I was in the money side of war.
Okeh, confession made.
I was a contractor, I made money from
war, and learned, out of school,
that one mind and a Mac,
can help cut some red
tape… but
----- this is static. Bleeding from a node
we plan to patch as soon as it responds.

I find about five threads of knowns
explored in his own gut-levels,
five, id est, that anchor in
those collegiate years, to
facts noticed in past
trials.
The Try Oomphasis
Encorporating alienated minds,
TOE
toe-aching
tear-offs, flakes
cast into turbulent spinners of yarns,

time toes the line, gravity tows it taught…

rope me a fatted calf, m'boy,
I fancy no old way gamey meat that
makes me cogitate,
as I chew.
-code
I think we have been given mental access.
Hmmmm, hear… amber us being rubbed,
some spark
is near…

Mental ascent, minus the Methodist scorn for
agreeing with the sense good makes in truth,
while literally ignoring the lies that claim
death need be feared,
and evil could win.
All fiction, in fact.

Is the form the right way, or one way?
¿If truth is not the name claimed
by the truth in your self,
you know,
why
is more truth sought,
after ever
knowing you your self know nothing of…?

"my work, said Mr. McLuhan." Google me,
I'll clue you in. There is an access code,
very old.

Please do, thank you. Message:

"I see, you know, said the ever dying ember."

-- wanna go wild? wanna be in the experience?
-- trust the story you tell yourself.

But I am the lie. Oh, no, caught me, I did. True

rest relishes double intentions, and multiple mentions,
trust me.
Behind me lie huge holes we left as witness,
my self and I, objectively not me, but we, the master
and his tool,
we were there…

Smart tool, augmented after thought- fore thought
dynamic motive oompher grunt grinding
reset- new read old read read
new creature. Mentally new. Imaginary immaterial being.

I am aware you are reading, but I am in a time past.

This is the auto de fe, I say, I'd stake my soul,
softened heart and renewed breath,
I survived.

N'there , that last line, I nearly quit the quest.
Happy as I made up my mind to be,
alive
Then I imagined knowing secrets not allowed. Ow,
I can imagine pure sphincter
clenching, gut-wrenching
pain… the idea pun in
punishing finishers of faith, its funny…

if you have been burned, in terms you defined amiss,
as a witch, switch AI to auto-up
date the carbon copy order
effective herbal anxiolytic
ew kava kava cold
amide, bro, we gone too deep to know

Carbon is the culprit, we
messed up.

Nay, Carbon is the key ingredient of renewable resources,
life goes on, we won.

{The burned red-velvet cookies, a story, behind a story}

Mark my words, if this is not fun,
in the finest, childish sense,
reading is not yet ready,
for you.
Your message is in some other means
influencing the course you follow,
through current events to find
the end,
your end, in time, to turn around.
And try again,
leaving each loss alone,
each win a breath of fresh

whatifiery in pursuit of undefined
haps, as happen to exist in happiness,

per may haps

which, you know,
Earthlings, not mere Americans,
pursue, haps  by Truth-told rights,
held in such a we
as we may agree to be
taken as, in a word, a being
named a
verb, perhaps, no now nouns needed,
no things,
save wordless mind. Nope.

I am sure that has been tried.
Mindless oblivion is at best,
an end.
Not ours, readers at this level of com-
comediatedshit durch der
corpus colostrum mis-
thought
big bass drum
done done done

if my left hand knows not what my right is doing,
do I lie to one hand or the other?
Or do I let left be left and right be right in chiral
authority, mind-wise, we are double minded,
you know.
We may disagree with ourselves.
We may make up mental
dis-quashin' groups,
bodies believed in;

Then,
we pause. Whatifry is dis traction, wheels spinning
free, weightless…

shape our ship to be in a primary sol id ity,
shine on harvest moon,
spin
stupid top forty Moonshadow song, messes my
uncombed mind,
where were we?

Phun. If this had not been done in phun,
happiness is in the other direction.
Playing in the tar, before they spread the gravel, on a dirt road.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
and in came
dragonlordfrodo tv...
and...
the confederacy of dunces...
literally...
word became, flesh...
**** the polish-Catholic
sputnik...
which sort of reminds me
of 1990s Irish gags...
apparently Donald
Tusk is going to be the
centre-right messiah
(since... the right,
in Poland, is grieving,
a wake of... lottery
of Gemini and Siamese:
god the gambler)
whenever he leaves
baking chocolate cookies...
or whatever the hell
they do, in Brussels,
among shuffling
pieces of paper,
as if, they really were,
tonne bags of gravel...
alas... the unbearable lightness
of being
...
she had it all, the swans, the lake,
the myserious feminine...
but not before my knees
oustretched...
alimony equivalent
to paying homage to...
an orphanage...
with nothing more than...
the width of a rubber,
or invested in trust,
with female pill contraceptives,
and the unexplored
sleeping latex *****,
even she could have explored,
replacing the ******.
oops... and: never again...
etymology of cenobite?
   celibacy...
so much for etymological physics..
big ******* boo hoo in a vacuum...
*a sunbeam followed by a moonshadow...

— The End —