Eclipse
I would love to write at night
keep company with the night owls
and the birds that wake in wee hours of the morning.
I am not this sunlit zombie.
Fae or witch or boundary-beast, one of those,
the Other, is my true self. Darkness comforts,
cradles and caresses. Beckons all my demons
all my angels to come out and play or taunt
or dream or dance. Cavort or
pine with cheek upon a slim white hand and
eyes wet, limpid like the pools of moonlight.
I would love to write at night, to flee
the rays that steal my water soul, evaporate
my misty breath on contact. I expire
and lose my compass rose, mandala
limned in silver indigo and black.
Turn out the light. Pull down the shade.
Give me tea and chocolate while I calculate
the next eclipse, next Black Hole Sun.
Night in day, a hum of drones, spectators
watching scintillated shadows,
they don’t notice us, the secret waiting werewolves.
Black circle shifts and purest gasp of liquid light,
a single drop of star achieves my eye my zombie soul
is pierced, dissolved, dismembered.
Elixir saved and rationed, now to feed upon to sip
in pantries, basements, hunched and hairy-handed
in damp caves where bats and camel crickets go.
I would love to write at night, and some day,
some night soon, one midnight under slivered moon
that silver draught will sate and overtake,
and I will rise to terrorize the dawn world.
Wren Donovan
First published in Ink Drinkers Poetry, Issue #6, Summer 2022
I would love to write at night
keep company with the night owls
and the birds that wake in wee hours of the morning.
I am not this sunlit zombie.
Fae or witch or boundary-beast, one of those,
the Other, is my true self. Darkness comforts,
cradles and caresses. Beckons all my demons
all my angels to come out and play or taunt
or dream or dance. Cavort or
pine with cheek upon a slim white hand and
eyes wet, limpid like the pools of moonlight.
I would love to write at night, to flee
the rays that steal my water soul, evaporate
my misty breath on contact. I expire
and lose my compass rose, mandala
limned in silver indigo and black.
Turn out the light. Pull down the shade.
Give me tea and chocolate while I calculate
the next eclipse, next Black Hole Sun.
Night in day, a hum of drones, spectators
watching scintillated shadows,
they don’t notice us, the secret waiting werewolves.
Black circle shifts and purest gasp of liquid light,
a single drop of star achieves my eye my zombie soul
is pierced, dissolved, dismembered.
Elixir saved and rationed, now to feed upon to sip
in pantries, basements, hunched and hairy-handed
in damp caves where bats and camel crickets go.
I would love to write at night, and some day,
some night soon, one midnight under slivered moon
that silver draught will sate and overtake,
and I will rise to terrorize the dawn world.
Wren Donovan
First published in Ink Drinkers Poetry, Issue #6, Summer 2022
