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Open Poetry #47
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OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

0 posted 2011-01-23 02:03 AM



MOON PATTERNS
July 1999

The moon makes patterns on my floor,
leaf-edged and almost still.

The thick blanket of night silence cushions
the little sounds
of talking wood,
the rhythmic heartbeat of a dripping tap,
a bark in the distance
that is passed on faithfully in highs and lows
to north and south and east and west.
I wish I understood its message.

Sensitivity quivers
and a hundred crawling perplexities
mate and multiply and mutate
into grotesque monsters
that pulse electric shock
after shock
after shock
until the patterns on the floor
reduce them to limp, exhausted slugs.

I long for night to end and never end.

Leaf-edged and almost still,
the moon makes patterns on my mind.

Owl

© Copyright 2011 Diana van den Berg - All Rights Reserved
JerryPat
Senior Member
since 2010-10-30
Posts 1991
Louisiana/America
1 posted 2011-01-23 06:37 AM


Nice work, Owl. You projected much passion here. An almost surreal context to it, "MOON PATTERNS" is laced with mysterious sights, i.e., "The moon makes patterns on my floor,
leaf-edged and almost still." In the beginning the mood is, although not lackadaisical, but at least tongue-in-cheek. But the time you get to the ending the poem becomes one of loneliness and sorta bleak. I liked both scenarios.

~ Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.  ~

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
2 posted 2011-01-23 06:59 AM


Thank you, Jerry.  You pretty much got it, except for the tongue-in-cheek bit.  However, you were right about the progression.  The last stanza is a sort of mirror image of the first stanza. I was watching the moon patterns on the floor in a very slight breeze that was making the leaf-shapes of my forest quiver, and pondering as the sounds took me deeper into the night and my worries arose and increased.  I was loving and hating the night simultaneously.

Owl

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