These years are speeding darkly
Since the epiphany. You don't get
A lot of those.
Last night
On the beach I laid back to watch
The shooting stars; some say
The heavenly stars. The Perseids
Burned indiscriminately,
I counted two.

I was starstruck watching
The four satelites,
In a pre-determined orbital,
That would burn as sure as
A ghetto.

Ogling the dark spaces;
Comforted, there's more stars
Out there for some other reason.
And wham. It happened , always unexpected.
It's not because something's not there;
It's because it never was, but for
Two meteors and four satelites.
I saw the light.

I love the sound of rain on a summer's night.
Coming down on the leaves, the lake, the cover of our tent.
Joined by the chirping of crickets and the croaking of bullfrogs...
No music is more soothing.
And being there with you is just bliss.

I can tell you're a bit disappointed.
This was going to be a magical night.
Our trip was planned months ago,
to catch the early-August meteor showers.
I was to see my first shooting star.
You were to show me where to look.
We would have spent the night gazing at the stars,
or at each other,
whichever.

But it's not meant to be.
The sky's permanently overcast and the rain refuses to relent.
The Perseids simply carry on their invisible trajectory,
without a care in the world.

''We're at the theater. The featured play is unfolding before us, meanwhile the curtain is left down.''

''And all the comedians are mimes?''

You laugh.

''This doesn't have to spoil our night. We can still have some fun.''

And we're off for a late skinny dip.

Getting down to the lake is the tricky part,
the rocky-muddy ***** steep and slick from the rain.

''It's so dark!''

I guess that's why we came here. To stargaze.
Thankfully, there's still a bit of moonlight reflected off the lake to guide us.
I avoid stumbling over the canoe and offer you a hand down the last step.
Before jumping into the water, I turn to look at your perfect naked body,
taking it all in.

Splash!
You're more cautious, dipping your toes to test the water before wading in.
The lake is warm.
You swim to me, careful not to kick too deep.
You don't like feeling the seaweed brush your ankles.
We embrace.
Instantly, I'm aroused by the slippery contact.
And that hunger in your eyes.

Love making is awkward at first, as we struggle to tread water.
Then we get the hang of it, and suddenly it's intense and overwhelming.
Fiercely passionate.
Deliciously tender.
A loon's soft call catches my ear.
Draws me back to the soundscape that surrounds us.
The drizzling of the rain,
the chirping of the crickets,
the croaking of the bullfrogs.
A lovely, ***** chorus.
To which we add our own excited gasps and moans of pleasure.

the sky lightens gradually
as if from nowhere, as if someone
in the sky is slowly rising,
blinking sleep from his eyes
and sitting lazily up onto his elbow,
casually ******* the brightness slider
on the universe as if he's done it
every day, he must have.
before the pink can hit it the checker
pattern of clouds fades away,
promising a casually clear blue
day but this one is more
personal now, his gift to me,
because on the concrete looking up
i can see the sun before it rises,
i know what it's like to wake
with the sun there on the other
side of the bed, to see her slowly
blinking the stars from her skies.
yawning, stretching, morning breath,
to see her rolling up her sleeves
and tying back her hair
and scattering her dreams of death
with a shake of her tired head.
and yet even before she is fully awake
she is so radiant.
the moon, shooting stars, even the perseids
step back to let her shine.
i feel as though when the sun
hides behind storms some days,
each day i will know why.

We are the stuff of stars,
left here to learn of love.
Learn of that
which was here before us.

To shed this cloak of flesh,
to look deep within two souls,
see the oneness
of the universe.

We are the stuff of dreams,
never to wake from sleep,
or know the mystery
of this life.

We are the stuff of stars,
that trail the night sky,
from dust we came,
and dust we leave behind.

*The Perseids /ˈpɜrsiːɨdz/ are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. The name derives in part from the word Perseides, a term found in Greek mythology referring to the sons of Perseus.

I need you
Like I need
This next breath
This next heart beat,
In this moment
That you eclipse my mind
It's an imperfect world
Covered in darkness
Because I cannot see
What will be of me
Without you,
Because if this persists
This minute to minute
Absence of you
In my picture perfect dream,
Then I cannot
Will not
Take my next step
My next breath
Because I cannot
Will not
Continue like this
Without you,
Waiting for you
Like the next
Perseids
Just watching
The trailing showers
Knowing I won't
Live until its return...

APAD13 - 133 © okpoet

I look up at the stars


And I see you.

a roadtrip to somewhere,
just so we could watch a meteor shower.

we didn't even know exactly where to go,
only that we wanted to watch the shooting stars without the city's glow.

at first adrenaline filled our somber and tired selves;
we were all fueled with the idea of seeing something magical at twelve.

then came the rush of being lost in lonely, secluded roads.
suddenly we realized, this trip, to our parents we should've told.

whose is that car parked at the other side of the highway?
were they here even before we stopped to look at the meteors fall away?
should we flee or should we stay?
i don't want this to be our last day.

oh god please help us
we're running out of gas

and just as we are consumed with panic,
and fear of strangers in places, dark and exotic
we drive back to the city,
where the people are awake and much less creepy.

when the lamposts became brighter,
and the surroundings no longer sinister,
where the stars we so longed for became much hazier,
we simply laughed at our cowardice,
and at our overly-hightened suspiciousness.

as dull, yet terrifying the world can be,
even with rare astronomical phenomenas that are oh so sightly,
adventures are really, no less scary.
yet everything can still feel mesmerizing,
and even reassuring,
so long as you are able to find just the right company.

Icy clusters of rocks and dust, leftovers
Of extra matter scattered around a star.
Following the orbit guiding a perpetual run,
For seeing creatures to gaze at midnight skies
In search of glistening shooting lights.

Comets, so named by the ancient man,
Enchant humans to strive and understand,
Beholding their subliming approach to the Sun,
Where radiations and winds melt solids to sparkle
Spews of gas. An aura, a coma and a tail.

Nebulosity inclosing the nucleus confers
On the object a misty glow, distinguishing it
Form a star, hiding water in volatile form.
Tails extending to astronomical units lose
Trails of debris at times, visible to the naked eye.

When finally orbital highways cross,
Meteor showers arise. Debris igniting
As falling stars, enter the atmosphere.
Perseids in August begot by Swift-Tuttle
Comet, Orionids in October by Halley's.

Games of splendour to remind us where
We come from and how it all began.
When antediluvian comets did not shy away
From colliding unswervingly with Earth,
Reach its crust. Inundating the planet with H2O,

For us to be here, witness the show.

I was going up the hill
to watch the Perseids
with no dream in my heart
surprisingly
when i came back
i had out-wished
all the shooting stars

Stepping through into darkness
Street lights drowned out by solid silhouettes of trees
Distant stars brought closer
In awe of the dramatic beauty of the vast night sky
Feet still
Face upwards
Eyes drinking in the fullness of space
Blue light traces as shooting stars race
Vision made aware of bursts of incredible meteors
Moving through my universe
I would stay and drown for hours in the deep ocean of the stars
Glad to feel so small against something with no edge
Limitless mysterious infinity

I’m writing a letter to you.
It’s in a maze. Like me.
Surely you’ve seen the Perseids.
Above the sea.
It’s the same with the words,
which I’m writing or have written.
I don’t remember.
And they are always another.
Not those ones which I’d like to say.
Or I’ve said?
I don’t remember.
I’ve abandoned the thought
like a traveler who is walking
to a harbor.
The ships depart there.
Further and further.
Further …
May I see you,
how you’re walking along the little cobble
street,
which I haven’t passed in,
to meet you and to tell you
the love is one.
I don’t remember if I said this to you.
In fact, I don’t know if it’s where
one should pass through to somewhere.
I don’t know if you’ve seen
The Perseids and the sea.
I don’t remember.
If I write anything else
but one –
one.
I don’t remember.

The original:

Писмо

Пиша ти писмо.
То е объркано. Като мен.
Сигурно си виждала Персеидите.
Над морето.
Така е и с думите,
които ти пиша или съм писал.
Не помня.
И все са други.
Не тези, които бих искал да кажа.
Или съм казал?
Не помня.
Изоставил съм мисълта
като пътник, който върви
към пристанище.
Корабите от там тръгват.
Все по-далече.
По-далече…
Дано да те виждам,
как вървиш по-малките калдъръмени улички,
по които не съм минавал,
за да те срещна и да ти кажа,
че любовта е една.
Не помня, дали ти го казах.
Всъщност, не знам дали от там
се минава, за някъде.
Не знам, дали си виждала
Персеидите и морето.
Не помня.
Пиша ли нещо друго,
освен едно -
една.
Не помня.


Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.

Sometimes I wonder
if somehow you're the greatest accident
I might just live through

And its on days like these
when the sky is crying
that I remember
salted caramel kisses in the rain
and violent starry night crashes
and the bruises on my skin

You were like some wounded animal
I kiss your scars
and you run away
firing off like a sawn off shotgun
when daybreak comes
But I can still taste you on my tongue

You said you wished your
wisdom teeth would grow straight
Maybe I'm just your favorite sin to make
My lipstick stains on your cigarettes
I haven't washed your scent out of my hair
a veiled threat
of moonlit shore secrets
mad ******* poetry
and intoxicating electricity
in a not-so foreign place
come find me
If only I'd care enough
to stay

Why can't it be simple
like lazy early mornings
when you'd find me
leather jacket and bikini
waiting for the sun
to warm my bones
Or sleeping away most of the day
in naked intimacy
Incandescent nights
making music in candlelight

Maybe it was some
drunk accident of six years ago
When I found someone else
who loves dancing in the rain
as much as I do
Maybe it's true
that sometimes love
is written in episodes
When will you learn
how to love
the things you don't understand
And to stop running away
from yourself
in endless feedback loops
day after night after day
after everything

There are times when
there is wisdom to be had
and it takes wanting
too much
to bring color to these hours
maybe I like how things
fall as they are
Why don't you and I
just hide tonight
for old time's sake?
And maybe we can make
the same mistake
like we always do
And breathe in the summer solstice
with wide eyes
bringing heat to each other's sheets
until we peel off
this summer skin

And I am still here
in fits and starts
while you're sleeping
thinking about this new accident
just waiting to happen

Let me court you and bend my pride,
Venting foolish passions,
Vowing with my heart,
     Volleying pebbles to your window.

Do not forsake for my sake,
     Say, you are the fickle Moon
And I'm a grumpy Narra tree,
That I'm the dizzied Sun and you—
A pirouetting world, that we are
     Two islands of the Archipelago.

But never say, impulsively say,
That you are the shooting star,
     The Perseids, a meteor shower,
For it is then, love,
That I would have become
The melancholy,
     The Universe.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

I witnessed a carousel of twinkling lights
Songs of nature filled the clear August night
Wet grass cooled each step
Two stars fell from the midnight Heaven , I made two wishes for Mary Ellen* .....

With windswept hair and the beginnings
of smiles, faces in focus and the backs
blurred, arms out to the sides like birds
that are already flying, hands in hands
that brighten what is around them
instead of fighting it. Serenading each
other with words that settle into
the crisscrossing of passers by instead
of matching them step for fist. Wouldn’t
that be nice. Instead we sit a little apart
on the rocks, because even when
we are close the telescopes magnify
the distance, and I look up instead
of around, trying to recall the difference
between comets and asteroids and
meteors but only half in it. Those things
could be anything, as long as I get to watch
something else burn as it falls.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                              In the Season of the Perseids

Most people find beauty in everything:
An old Peterson’s pipe, crickets, Irish coins
Fire trucks, fountain pens, a favourite old book
Cattails growing in ditches along the road

Short strings of words that breathe and sigh as songs
Sunflowers fainting in the afternoon
A treefrog pulsing on the windowpane
Ladybugs drowsing on a tomato leaf

Even so, how hard it is to feel beauty
In late July’s wearying, withering heat

Silver speckled specks sprinkle the night sky
Spectacular sparks
Spots of light, flying by

A meteor shower

I stare up at the sight
Lying in a quiet field
The cities light far in the distance
Delighting in the darkness
A portal to another dimension often hidden
Paradoxically, a reality obscured by light
Away from the truth the light reveals
I now relish in the truth of the dark
The view of the night sky
A portal to the past
Yet also to the present

Back supported by the cool, firm earth
My visual field consumed
Filled with infinity
I soon realize
Here, now, in this moment
I have no head

Where my head should be
Is the night sky
Myriad stars and the endless space between

When juxtaposed to infinity
Actual, immeasurable infinity
Even my stubborn ego
Cannot keep up the fight
I dissolve into the night
And each gleaming point of light
Sometimes streaming across so bright
A glorious glint
On a short fated flight
Undertaken anyway
Without even a hint
Of spite


Each ephemeral illumination
Mirrors the spark of creation
The egoic conflagration
This meandering mentation
Of thought
Pure invention
Now caught
My attention
Now an ought
Instead of is

Rumination replaces reality
In between the stars and me
Not physical, still I cannot see
My attention follows helplessly

Infinity recedes
Thought impedes
Advice I do not heed
A voice I do not need

As suddenly as it began, it disappears
The thought vanished, my mind clears
Again I have no head
My bed is the earth
My view is infinite
Each star a blazing hearth
Billions giving birth to light across the galaxy
In this small piece that I can see
I peacefully float
In infinity
No self at all
No head to call my own
I make the world my home

Shooting
Down
To disappear,
Passing through
Space and time.
Momentum moving
Them,
Perseids fly.

Darkened night,
Sparkling clear
Through blackness,
Near.

Like our lives,
So fragile,
They too,
Disappear.

It was the middle of the night when the power went out.
My body
accustomed to an ambient electrical hum
refused sleep.
I got up, and you followed
just like always.
We walked to the top of the hill where we lived
at the time
We've moved four times since that night.
We walked,
your collar's gentle sonance
conflicting with the silence.
When we reached the peak
we stood,
our small world lit only by the moon.
We beheld the great expanse
of the shy quiet stars
that usually hid behind the light pollution.
The milky spill of a spiral galaxy,
where we lay spinning on its periphery,
backlit the countless trails of fire courtesy of the Perseids.
And I thought
there have been more nights without street lights
than nights of human history.
These flaming trails of ice and dust,
these remnants of comets,
would exist despite those of us lucky enough
to bear witness
that night the power went out.

She left him at night,
Eyes moving away and hearts,
Falling like Perseids.

we watched for the Perseids
by a fire on the lawn
that was before i knew

all those late night talks
would turn into something that
i cannot turn off

we watched for the Perseids
while Denver sang about roads
that was before i felt it

every star falling to the ground
burning through our skin
we couldn’t stop it

this is our fate
shooting through the skies
close, but never together
disintentegrating every time

Hit me with that difference
between nodes and cores
and processors, between
being me and being sure.
Tell me again how to
calculate it, I missed the
first time, don’t shout--

remind me the difference
between comets and asteroids
and meteors, and how computers
and space are not the same
because to me it’s all voids--
the Perseids could be anything
as long as I get to watch
something else burn as it falls.

neon birds above
plastic souls beneath
I have no choice
but to feed my soul
with the secret of trees

I still dream
in the skin of the rain
I write with my eyes
poems of touch

This summer I chased
perseids
again
I tried to forget all about
this age of anxiety,
or about the eyes with no echo

For a moment I let reality crash
like cloud castles
and
neon birds spring above
my tired city

She left him at night,
Eyes moving away and hearts,
Falling like Perseids.

She left him at night,
Eyes moving away and hearts,
Falling like Perseids.