~ Were you born in the wrong century? ~
Would you have fit in at King Arthur’s table
been a blood-stained Crusader if able
In Rome, been a patrician or plebe
or like Cassius, have a plot up your sleeve
Would you have pondered with Galileo the night sky
or been a ‘flat-earther’ who never asked why
Would you, like Washington, have forded the Delaware
even if you had but moth-eaten rags to wear
Would you have bad-mouthed cars for the sake of your horse
sabotaged phone lines to preserve Samuel Morse…
Well, let me tell you, as for me,
I would have joined Fred and Barney Flintstone
for a ride on a pterodactyl built for three
I pawn my prayers for a handful of hunger and the clerk calls it salvation.
One's halo's on hire purchase cracked chrome still sticking on the devil's desk.
I trade mercy by the minute marked down,moth eaten!,mislabeled as hope.
My heartbeat haggles with hell drumming debt into my desperate dawns.
My tears come with interest,each drop a receipt stamped *Final Hell.*
The Spirit goes AWOL on paydays,replaced by plastic faith and payday psalms.
Heaven's door has a coin slot but my pockets cough only dust.
I'm a ghost on consignment groaning in gospel tones for one more breath of grace.
Angels appraise my agony and cry,"too used,too human,too late."
I sing in chains proud and penniless,a prophet of pawned redemption, my soul on layaway.
DEMENTIA CASTS LONG SHADOWS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sunlight fades from the window ledge
hands tremble, reaching through
mist where memories dwell
her memory – a moth-eaten shawl
whispers cling to dusty frames,
familiar faces blurred
like rain on windowpanes
keys forget what doors they knew
chairs hold ghosts’ warm weight
the clocks hands swim backward
through forgotten dates
footsteps echo in empty rooms
long shadows cast where memories pass
Written: May 09, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Constance La France
Quote: "There is a loneliness more precious than life, there is a freedom more precious than the world." By Rumi
****************
The frosty night breeze embraces me tight,
Such as a moth-eaten shield, enticing flight.
Bitter rain lashes against the sidewalk face,
Delicate drops pirouette, each finding its place.
Visions flicker by in headlight, fleeting beams,
Love's echoes glimmer akin to vanished dreams.
How jaded lovers lose spark, turning strangers,
Specters in their home, now cloaked in danger.
Foreign dialects speak in words we once knew,
Widening cracks claim seismic shifts through.
Still, optimism clings as I traverse the city chill,
Dreams still nudge that love may cure what is ill.
Silent tears trace paths down my weary skin,
Longing for dawn light, for a raw start within.
As the sun rises, distances wantonly wane,
As rainfall fuels flowers, may our link heal again.
Moth-eaten hag was a big battle-ax biddy
A hackneyed hag who wandered New York City
Grandam of the alley, a smelly aged fish wife
Aren’t you glad you did not have her kind of life?
Don’t be so hasty to judge, said my friend.
She had cats and companions to the very end.
The homeless took care of her, they loved her too.
Who is going to do the boo-hooing for you?
On the parlor wall, a canvas frame
Adorned with whispers of a fascist game
A warped impression, born of decadence and sleep
The perfect lie, where dreams and nightmares creep
A stenciled girl with eyes of distant gray
A masquerade of innocence, in every way
Her beauty is a snare, a trap to ensnare
The unsuspecting heart, with promise and with care
But I see through the veneer, the artful disguise And in the darkness, I find my compromise
On the parlor wall, a perfect crime
A '68 FBI wanted poster, faded design
A lazy Vargas pinup spread her thighs
But I see only the thrill of pale, painted lies
The Mona Lisa's smile, a ruse and a birth
A masquerade of irony, dancing on moth- eaten earth She hides her truth, a promise kept from sight As I piss on the pyre, the charade takes flight
Old flame memories, and game show repeats,
viewed through tobacco, it's smoke fills the room,
loneliness, only, stays glued to defeat,
blue-bottles, can't help, but choke on the gloom.
Dreams like the remote, corroded to rust,
unopened, unpaid, bills sit by the door,
surrendered and lost, to despair and dust,
no-one levelled up, around here for sure.
Each day's an ashtray, of stub filled regret,
while moth eaten drapes, block out the world's light,
another neat gin, will help to forget,
added indifference, towards day and night.
The blocked drains and sink, dirty old dishes,
all that remains of, yesterday's wishes.
In this late hour, the moon withdraws behind a cloud
Hiding her face and her light so dearly loved
And wraps herself in her old, moth-eaten shroud
As the last jack-o’-lantern’s flame is finally snuffed.
Bulky blue-purple bottle
Rounded and smooth
Sharp etches of gold
It’s heavy
But the weight is comforting
You can smell the musk from a foot away-
Without even spraying a spirits
Sprayed on a stuffed mouse
Doused on a t-shirt ball-
Wrapped with an engraved chain
Vivian
What's that smell–
Is asked
Or thought
To them it smells old
Like musk
Like dust
Like something forgotten on the top shelf at the back of the closet
Pungent
Like a moth eaten piece of lace
What’s that smell-
To her it smells like comfort
Like a warm arms caress and a lullaby
Like childhood before the self awarenesses
Soothing
Like the memories that play over and over on a sleepless night
Like summertime soaked in chlorine and pollen
Like winter draped in pajamas and garland
A musk
A memory
It’s the quiet that kills
The silence that slays
The loneliness that leaves holes in the soul
like a moth eaten sweater
I remember before today's technology
how a thrill would go through my body
from the top of my head to my toes
at the sight of a letter addressed to me
He would spritz the ones he sent
with his cologne so I wouldn’t feel alone
hearing his voice in my head as I read them
You can’t do that with email or over the phone
conversing through a computer screen
Such a simple thing as a letter once made me smile
I wish I could return to that time for a while
Eclipse
without sun
I am etiolated,
enfeebled, bereft
my backbone heavy
and limp,
muscles stale and indurate
from disuse
I try to lift my face,
feel the light,
even the dawn or dusk,
even when fog would cloud my vision
but I cannot move, for
my neck is fixed,
vertebrae seized, locked,
eyes that can do no more
than stare ahead
at this monolith, this
menhir, present since
I can remember
that ages me, leaves me
threadbare and faded,
as a moth-eaten blanket
fails to sustain a warm embrace
so I shiver in the shadow,
ensnared in this eclipse,
this dark moon
that will not detach me
from its bleak orbit
CINDERELLA’S CLOSET
spawned-jeans ripped to shreds
moth-eaten-sweater distressed ~
fit teen in fashion
1/5/2022
Mid-November skids into a white-boned sky
Frozen fish dream of warm tape water.
Every step is a cliff-top for the weakening.
Meanwhile, beautiful people wash-up on sandy beaches
create more buttery lobster commercials,
evening gowns drip like sequined icebergs.
The young are headlong as usual
and will not stop
until they pull us into their dreams,
they sew our jester hats
with a pitying love - just as we did theirs.
It’s impossible to regret anything
when the very ground under our feet
is begging for more banana skins,
more slip-ups - anything to keep us going
in a direction identified as forward
by the backward.
We who still dispense the sweet nothings
of glassy-eyes wizards,
must be seen as fully clothed and able,
ready to function still on the old fictions;
though daily, step by step
we are coming to resemble
the still-life taxidermy of moth-eaten owls.
Light stutters and slacks
slips under an ancient nightgown.
Gore and ghast rise to pin back eyes.
Plaster cast crawlers
take over the wards of dreamers.
The nurse is buried in her 'Peoples' magazine
she does not see the shadows
reaching to seal her coffin.
Tunnels arrive like mouths;
enter the breath bereft pyramid robbers,
moth-eaten eyes pined to their extinct skulls.
They want to steal your darkness
weave it into nightmares,
ride you like a seahorse in an oily turgid ocean
until you sink all your wish-bones
too deep for any hope.
Night cloth
Old house
Celestial fires
In the sky
Whole cloth
Moth eaten
Lost to time
Lost to night
Words spoken
Walls broken
Night cloth
Old house
Firey sky
Deep dreams
Blinking out
Casting shadows
On the walls
Old house
Shadow dreams
Words spoken
Walls broken
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