comet Swift-Tuttle
Perseid meteor show
shooting star wishes






Mark Toney ©️ 2023

I wonder what I am to do with my life.
Then, I see meteors.

Outside with tea and blankets:
a Fortress against the

August cold.

And so begins another typically English evening.

night is marching,
marching on and

unusually

we are not glued to our phones
nor the daily grind.

we catch a handful of

Shooting Stars

and find that this is an addictive occupation.

One moment I wished I could drape my room with starry waterfalls
but then considered how they would

dull
      
       and
            
            darken

if I breathed too deeply in my sleep.

(a subconscious effort to absorb some starlight into my clotting veins.)

So leave me now under the
Flaming Sky and all its anger.

Leave me alone so that I may fall asleep,
at last.

I have an appointment with the moon about my dulling temperament.

The stars have sworn to let down a

r
o
p
e

l
a
d
d
e
r

my own Stairway to Heaven.

So rip my heart out,
let my arteries unwind.

Haul me to heaven with my umbilical cord.

There I cling to the back of a comet
and hurtle through space
alive at last and full of stars
until the nausea takes hold

and puts me to bed.

It is summer and soon the Perseid showers
I have gone from my desert home
I wander far from crowded towns
my feet in grassy, bee clover
deep summer, all daisy flowered
green leaves, wild blackberries
await the August sun fire.

Here amid the slowing of mars retrograde
of my love returning home too late
no long goodbye, only the weight
I watch oceans of seaweed sway
at night the phosphorescence
the lonesome of sea stars trailing.

Beyond the oak and silver hills the day nestled in
soft breeze about the land, lily white moon
to light a sky of sparkling starry flowers
Whispers woke the sleeping one
and spoke the night to follow
Owl flew ever high  
beneath a Perseid's shower
A dream - you awoke
to watch shooting stars fall quiet
passed your window
til morning came with birds and stars
peace upon your pillow

I am 14.6 billion years old. I am energy traveling at the speed of light,
I am a single proton with one orbiting electron, perfectly balanced
With quarks and bosons and higgs inside
And pieces of matter yet to be understood by man.
I am every star, every atom of Hydrogen fused to Helium.
I am a massive object of molten rock, cooling and fusing.
I am trilobite knee and dinosaur tooth,
Wooly mammoth hair fiber.
I am Permian Extinction, I am Ice Age, I am all surviving species.
I am most distant brothers of man, I am first language and first songs.
I am Bubonic Plague and Death
And life out of new molecules from old.
I am the Industrial Revolution,
I am Depression and Holocaust and oppression.
I am titanium and assembly line.
I am Perseid meteor shower and Halley ’s Comet.
I am every black hole,
Inside, another whole universe of me.

I am seconds young, and I have much to learn of
The multitudes of the universe, myself.

It came softly warm, mist of fragrant showers
garden flowers of parchment petals
drank of sun, of moon, of rain
silent the Perseid showers
a falling sea of rain
sparkling in the night sky.

It came softly warm, mist of fragrant showers
bright flowers of parchment petals, drank
of sun, of moon, of rain
a world glistening, silent
as perseid shooting stars
falling from a sea
of heavens

Mehmet II burns
in my hand
while we hunt
the Perseid shower
under a waxing
gibbous moon's white
sea broadcast.
Prosecco disappears
inside us. You pick
deck tomatoes, and
conversation gets
interesting by your knee.

The night doesn't end
so much as folds and
folds again, with us
by the very center.
Sinuous silk birds
crease into sheets
just beyond your
delectable ear.
Your breath
a dark ribbon,
a flower of steam,
a door I step through
on my way to the
kingdom of hands.

Swear to god this is a true story.
Picture, like, the hottest woman you’ve ever seen-
like Natalie Portman in Black Swan
like Angelina Jolie in Gia
like a young Carrie Fisher in her slave Leia outfit
like any **** star you’ve ****** it to, honestly, any **** star
and there’s this woman, she’s standing bare-assed naked in front of me
swaying her hips slowly and making all these other women
look like Sloth from the Goonies, “Hey You Guuuys.”

Her hair, I just want to run my hands through it, messy it up,
yank it tight the way a jockey grips the reins when he’s about to come
in first place at the Kentucky Derby.
Bend her over, make her my Kentucky Derby.
Her hair, I **** you not, it looks just like yours.

Her eyes, I swear to god, in her eyes I could see the sunrise,
the sunset, the Aurora Borealis, the Perseid meteor shower,
and a lesbian **** on the beach in Cabo during Spring Break.
Honestly, if I couldn’t **** her brains out,
just staring into her eyes would’ve been a great consolation prize.
As a matter of fact, you and her have the same eyes.

Her smile, sweet Jesus, I wanted it.
I don’t just mean I wanted her lips wrapped around my *****.
I mean, her smile was enough to run to Kay Jewelers or Aaron Brothers
or wherever the ******* go to get a ***** a ring.
I wanted to love her the way police bullets love black bodies.
Believe it or not, her smile was exactly like yours.

And her ****, do I have to mention they’re the best pair I’ve ever seen?
God probably even patted himself on the back for those.
Of course, I haven’t seen yours yet…

I swear to god, she smelled like a waffle
and I don’t mean that cheap instant toaster ****,
I mean like home-made batter poured into a waffle iron,
topped with gobs of butter and expensive, top-shelf Vermont Maple
and I don’t know if I’m supposed to be ***** or hungry;
but either way, I want to dive right in.
Don’t give me that look, breakfast is my favorite meal.

So she takes her finger, brushes it against my lips,
and I would’ve ****** the Universe out of that finger,
but her touch is like gossamer.
She slowly dances her finger lower,
pauses at my chest, probably wanting to swirl it in some chest hair
but I don’t have any–this is probably confusing to her.
When she trails lower toward my belly button, it tickles
but in a good way, the way it tickles when you slide your finger into
the envelope that holds your Christmas bonus.
This woman is such a tease and I can’t help but think I should tie her up
and go down on her like a bulldog eating peanut butter.
She’s not even touching my **** yet and already I want to blow my load.
I’m afraid I just might when she finally gets there.
Her touch still so soft, so gentle, so delicate
like the extra-absorbency tissues I ******* into…

****!
It all makes sense now.
I’ve fallen asleep after ******* again.
See, I read this article about the benefits of ******* before bed
so these days I’m finding every excuse to take a nap.
Only imagine my surprise when I open my eyes.
I wasn’t imagining that delicate tickling sensation.
Sitting proudly atop my ***** *****
like a ******* prince charming ready to take down the dragon
is the biggest, meanest, ugliest, blackest black widow I’ve ever seen in my life.
I swear to god, we do something like lock eyes, I’m frozen in terror
and I shake my head furiously but the ****** bites me, anyway;
I scream that like poor sap Aron Rolston; only
it’s my ***** that get caught underneath the boulder.
I smack the **** out of that black widow.
But it’s too late.

And now, after all the venom
and the swelling and the oozing
and the scabbing,
well, my ***** isn’t as pretty as it used to be.
I wouldn’t, but others might even use the words
“ugly” and “deformed”.
To be honest, it breaks my heart.
And no ******’ kidding, now, my *****, well,
it looks just like you.