'The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane's bill.'
     Dogen (1200-1243)

for sean m whelan

1. cygnus

i am not tamed
yet i do not always dress in bravado decor
i am free
yet i can be as temperate
as afternoon milk
i have noticed
if i talk about what i want to do
gradually i forget the need to do it
i grow legs
where my arms should hang.
& still
everyday at dusk
i wash myself
in one of my dreams.

2. pegasus

i want to
dine on the moon
with a soundtrack
surround sound of flamenco
have an illuminant spread
of interconnecting tastes &
rest with the verve inside me.

i would watch an earthset.
consoling myself with harmonica
allowing the music to shape me
within the space suit
while i am sleepless
ready
to breathe in the earthrise.
i won't time myself
to gain full effect -
anti time in anti gravity.
writing poems without words.

3. antares

i would wear my halter neck dress & growl &
sing & pray
focusing on the aquamarine
globe ahead. shimmering
a blue moon. earth.

painting angelfish upon my vessel
memorial evidence
that life exists
up there.

i'd give into my lust
drink saturnine coolings
satiate my thirst with
an out of this world love experience.

4. earth

the moon is always good for a night.
but i couldn't dream
on cold ground forever

i'd turn off the spanish guitars
& leave the couched satellite
try to chicane my months & years.

it's hard to banquet with hope
& create a life
out of thin air.
or in fact,
no air at all.

Published in mod_piece (Australia).