February

Sit down and hear my story of when the moon turned red before me
A bull stood wild and wary in the cold of February
The wind slithered past like a
ravenous moray, I stood framed in my doorway
The stars disappeared to let our darks
duel, no longer turning upon their white spools
Within this end,
noise begins low-down, like this sound of an old violin bow
Found braided with wax and drowsy, great jars of ink broke around me

The last thing that I remember,
the moon turned as red as a simmering ember
Gazing from its coal like a cinder,
bright enough for my eyes to blister

There's dreams, and then there's dreaming,
donkeys on the cliff with the lighthouse beaming
One eye lit to a long-gone ferry, I watched it, wild and wary
And I dreamt of the souls of the boatmen on the underside of the ocean
Icicle strings made of rain and spittle
met the mist and the moss in the middle
Of a wellington print in a trail cut
cloven, in and out of the stone so woven
Fire fading, failing its chimney, mouth open, but no words within me

The moon, repainted by a crimson
filter, burnt the walls within my shelter
Gazing from its coal like a cinder,
bright enough for my eyes to blister

To the north, the pockmarked quarries, in all their shivering glory
Boiling bell, born of an old church,
recovering prayers hovering like vultures
And our shadows, gaunt and garbled, slow-dancing upon the marble
Our brown bones, them that we buried, the crow judge, wild and wary
Too dark yet to see the ashes, until the moonlight's crimson sashes
Cast out in searing flashes, from within the midnight's ebony lashes

And thus I saw the searing ember, to this day I still remember
The moon gone red like a February
winter, gazing from its coal like a cinder