Book Illustration of Medieval Scriptorium
tallow tapers flicker weakly
midnight manuscripts laid down
on parchments and scrolls
libraries of dim inspiration
From my book Bohemian Scents
Midnight
All posts tagged Midnight
Scriptorium
tallow tapers flicker weakly
midnight manuscripts laid down
on parchments and scrolls
libraries of dim inspiration
“Red Dragon” by Milen Tod
the dragons come at midnight
when the guns are asleep
fire rains with the stench of dead angels
humanity thinned of its arrogance
stripped of its guardians
carbonized corpses retaining
no more than stilled shadows of life
fly ash scattered and blown
in the draft of grim leathery wings
man paying the ultimate price for
asserting dominion of nature
what irony unnatural creatures
meta-ethical figments of vengeance
deliver the strike that dethrones him
and yet they find need to come
night after night burning bodies in beds
human hubris so deeply inbred
that acute fears of dragons and death
never last past the morning
each day man climbs back on his throne
spouting same old same vacuous edicts
all lessons of darkness forgotten
From my books Onionskin and Legacies (vol. 2)
Image by Mike Gorton
From photo4me.com
highborn element
melts in a midnight blue sea
ennobling the dark
“Haunted Mirror”
Image by Vrajitoarea
From listal.com
voices in the glass
disembodied
unnerving
address grainy
moonlight directing
its faulty reflection
petite broken bells
sharing fractures
gone silent as shards
of dead eggshells
a culpable midnight
amused to strike fear
in the cracked ivory
face of the clock
not the time
nor the place for
an innocent dream
morbid moments
of flesh feeling
fated mortality
dangerous mercies
dispel any sense
of redemption
turn away from
the mirror who steals
all the peace
from the night
let the pillow perspire
releasing the scents
of old lovers
occasions more lurid
with ecstasy
lie in the blandish
of memory
fooling the hours
awaiting the morn
“Moonlit Cove”
Painting by Joyce Ortner
From joyceortner.com
sleek whiskered lion barks hollow the sea
rocks glisten and mediate cross-crashing surf
stars decorate tears of a saddened land’s end
salty sparklings that skitter on swirls in the rush
and return of cerulean moon-fluoresced foam
leaving bubbles to privately burst on the sand
man and woman alone
with their thoughts
drifting out of the darkness
to dance
to the tempo of tides
Photo from jjsanders.wordpress.com
11:59 pm…
wakefulness spent
in uncertainty
fumbling for faith
caught in clockworks
makes filigreed hands
sweep in stutter-steps
knowledge and truth
trapped in hesitant
chase over doubts
cracking faces
of rational thought
lacking trust
reason fails to fill
gaps in experience
moments unlived
foil endeavors
designed to achieve
full expression
of life in the pure
perfection of time
12:00 Midnight…
the cleaving point
splitting existence
with temporal blade
between daylight and dark
colored active and passive
before cut from after
cerebral the rift
shifting instant
sinks consciousness
under its physics
behind rising dreams
that Morpheus lifts
unconstrained by the
drag weight of reason
form taking on shape
of abstraction
when freely received
dares to manifest
mean metaphysic
of life in the pure
perfection of faith
12:01 am…
the subconscious mind
unfamiliar with logic
retrieves tandem
shunned opportunities
down among spring
coil and flywheel
restoring the whole
of immortal experience
meshing the past
that is known
with the future of all
that is possible
giving the movement
perpetual gear with
jeweled cadence
to drive its escapement
with smooth whispered
tick-tock
of life in the pure
perfection of soul
Poesy plus Polemics 