Michelle Smith

Moon Stones

Mine are purple, gray, light blue 

Oval 

Ornate 

Natural 

Stone stylish 

Twilighted and taken

Original, opaque 

New

Elegant 

👑

Indonesian, Indian 

Nimble 

💜💎

Jewelry 

Unique 

Nice

Eloquent 

☮️

The sixth month of the year  

 boasts not just 

the moonstone 

there are three birthstones,

not just one or two:

the pearl and alexandrite

I love and possess them too.

♊♋

A kaleidoscope of color

 adorned in silver or gold

on my finger

neck

or ear

A moonstone is powerful

pristine and protects from fear.

Is beautiful to behold.

A gem at the top of a sceptre 

for a wizard or sorcerer to adorn,

The mighty moonstone 

cool to the touch 

comforts the forlorn.

Enchantment within the grasp of my hand

A chakras delight and studied by man

Colors of red, green, and blue

A moonstone is an infusion  

of loveliness and luck for believers too.

I Circular

How high is the moon?

A yellow white creamy ball 

A lapel worn 

on the suit of a global black sky.

How yummy is the moon?

Am I reminded of Swiss cheese

and want to take a bite

with Ritz crackers

and pepperoni--yay and yum!

How bright is the moon?

A circle that glows

its light shimmers romance

and dances diamond steps

on the high seas.

How Kraft is the moon?

A bagel spread 

with Philadelphia cream cheese

and a butter knife all around,

served with 

Bigelow's  "I Love Lemon"  hot tea

in a marigold Fiesta cup 

and saucer good.

How historical is the moon?

A high, yummy, bright, Kraft 

strong arm memory by Neil who says:

"That's one leap for man, and one step

for mankind."

Dayna Leslie Hodges

If Only

 

If only I could reign in the sun and

lasso the moon

hold time in slower tempo

I could collect my thoughts

gather memories

spend moments savoring stories

without rush of clock hands

waving at me to hurry up

move on, catch up with time

as it races by without a feeling notion.

 

If only I could hold the sun and moon

in my hands

bottle stars in a mason jar

then I could rest in ample light

bask in moments intimate

wherein my heart could unfurl

in its own tempo

without the world’s dizzy spinning

unraveling me.

 

If only I could experience my mourning

in stillness of perpetual dawn

peaceful and pristine

pure awakening without a heart in hurry

feel my way in the calm of pastel watercolors

heal to my own tune

as a song without limits

a languorous waltz

moving in step with my own tempo

rather than time’s dictates of flash feeling.

 

If only…

If only I could hold time at bay

for just a little while

a season, where I could begin to bloom again.

It’s been raining

for too long a duration

and I need some time

set aside for grieving

where I can flower without breaking

before winter arrives in flurry.

If only…

Ocean Deep

I am ocean not tide pool

I struggle in shallow waters

I thrive in fathoms;

I am more myself in the depths

freer to feel the bell tower calling

and able to answer this call

with treasures discovered while

exploring ocean floor.

In salt water I am buoyant;

I trust I will not sink 

whatever the echo’s reverb.

I will always rise;

my heart is my compass

it navigates toward the light.

I am stars and sunshine

I am moon and deepest midnight sky

I am weightless

I am grounded yet I soar.

In ocean, I am dream

in dream, I am loved.

I breathe upon the waters

currents crest and fall

swells soothe and rock

storms yield silence

as shore collects debris and broken shells

lets them settle into soft sand

until raging sea calms;

memories wait for love

to claim them as their own

and be no longer strewn about.

From fathoms deep

truth anchors and floats ruby gems to the surface

healed brokenness becomes beautiful

and I remain growing

anchored in the deep

with skyward gaze

trusting the tides 

in the deep end of the ocean 

rather than tide pool puddles.

Caleb Delos-Santos

What Of

 

Inspired by “what if” by Claudia Rankine

 

When what sits atop me,

when what shifts and climbs above me

-like I am the still soil and they are the ripples of corn

penciled in across the window just before me:

 

less a glass pane and more a page

printed with glittery yellow ink

from the sun midday, its rays:

 

less like the arms of God and more like the fingertips

of children cradling markers and crayons,

tickling the page of crops so they can grow

amber stamps, signatures, and even just scribbles:

 

clumped and outstretched,

as if heaven’s lights are trails

of paint rolls fixed and ignited

upon the tips of every splinter

of a summer’s rustic stage,

 

but also jumpy and electric,

as if every tether of light upon the corn

is a copper cord or a golden streamer,

more than just connecting,

more than just praising

the crops and their warm soil floor 

anchored to the core,

 

like they are the rising corn and I am the still soil,

who cannot keep these crops planted,

 

who cannot lock their roots in place,

or even brush them away from bedrock or any stone,

or even shepherd their gentle leaves,

 

which are open-armed like flowers

or children always hoping

for hugs after coloring,

 

like I am the simple soil who can only hold

the crops by surrounding their sides,

 

and collecting the many streams of light that link us,

and sitting with them and the wonder

of being alive before any soil becomes dust-

When what sits atop me,

when what shifts and climbs above me

 

are my children, dancing atop me

to open my Saturday morning

with a party of need, even just breathing,

 

what of my tremors, my attempts

to solve sentences with questions,

 

to consider and answer anything

not of my crops and of their climbing?

PJ Swift

Skipping Stone Symphony

The skipping stone along the surface of the vast placid lake created a sound and a tempo that nobody heard.  Or so it would seem in the cold open valley under a clear midnight sky.  But this was not true.  These sounds were part of a far larger symphony that comprised the entire earth.  The scratch of a small insect burrowed in the wood.  The whale singing its song across the ocean.  Every birdsong, every creak of a tree.  And yes, the traffic and the machinery and all the idle babble and chatter of the hoards of individuals who inhabited the earth.  All of it.  All the crawling worms, and roaring hyenas, and frail leaves that floated with the wind.  The grinding molten, the crashing waves,  the remotest drop of water on an arid plane.  All of these sounds and all the rest created a vast harmonic arrangement that was the earth's grand symphony.  And far, far away, beyond the earth's light, nothing was heard.  Or so it would seem in the cold vast open horizon of the interstellar universe.  But even this was not true.  The music was felt.  And those melodies would forever sing. 

Evading the Abyss

Swift flipped another stone onto the surface of the vast lake, and watched pensively as it skipped along the water, seemingly endlessly into the horizon, each touch a moment of charmed and magic contact.  But what he did not see, from another perspective, was that this vast, calm, still water where the stone now was skipping was on the edge of a massive, tumultuous waterfall.  In his silent reverie, Swift did not hear the overwhelming roar of the abyss.  And with each skip the stone came closer.  What would happen to this stone, this carrier of miraculous moments, in which life seemed to burst anew with each touch?  Would it fall off into the unknown, disappearing perhaps forever, or, would it, in its own mystical way, find the means to change course and evade the waterfall? Was it too late to avoid the undertow's pull, in any event?  And, would a possible fall, lead to annihilation, or, instead, to a whole new arena of miraculous opportunities?  Was it possible that the stone would keep on skipping?  Not only did Swift not know the answers, he wasn't even aware of these questions, yet.  But perhaps one day, as he would watch a skipping stone, these thoughts would enter his mind, and further bend and grow his own perception. 

Microdosing

The flying stone continues tapping the water's surface, skipping along this boundless body, each point of contact, a flash of a story.  These endless taps, these 1,001 nights of storytelling, are microdoses of narrative, poetry, of life's essence.  These nightly pieces, these quick fleeting taps, release literary microdoses to keep Swift lively, active and sane.  And so he stares at the skipping stone that he once had flung, and imagines with wonder, where and how far it can go. 

R A Ruadh

Luna sees

The moon rises over the rubble

reflecting on the restless sea

competing serenely with the

bright white phosphor explosions

glowing fires of burning tents and food warehouses

red flashing lights of ambulances under attack

The moon rises over the rubble

listening silently to the screams

of children enduring agonizing pain

sounds of splattering blood

flesh tearing as dying mothers birth

starved infants by artillery C-section

The moon rises over the rubble

watching the most moral army in the world

following their ancient burial rights

of placing stones upon graves of the dead

casting them with bulldozers to accommodate volume

The moon rises over the rubble

a beacon of light for the endless ghosts

embryos fetuses infants toddlers children

teenagers brothers sisters mothers fathers

aunts uncles grandmothers grandfathers

The moon rises over the rubble

as stars weep memories over the

poisoned earth which never more shall bloom

with crops other than bones and blood

unexploded missiles and memorials of

shame shaped stones

disguised as morality

After making the UN’s 2024 blacklist for abuse, violence, wounding, and killing of tens of thousands of children in Gaza, Netanyahu defended the IDF as the “most moral military in the world”.

In Jewish tradition a visitor to a burial site will place a stone on the grave.

Karen Pierce Gonzalez

 

Jeanne Marie Spicuzza

Moonglow

 

If you look closely

You can see the water moving

The moon is behind me

Kissing the orange sun goodbye

 

The wind in the trees

says its prayers with the leaves

Playfully ceasing as I stop

Then giving a shake to show courage

 

The crickets hum a harmony

Whole birds and squirrels are hiding

for the night, falling quickly,

Everything is silhouetted in black

 

Maria A. Arana

it's not the same...

it's not the same

this need

to belong

to truly be part

of the moon

reach unknown galaxies with a wink

but it must be specific

local

ready to part with its maker

blending

into obscurity

 

  

Moonlit Path

a curtain of black

covered in bright stars

waits for you

and without hesitation

you follow a moonlit path

towards it

 

your gait

an awkward pace

I follow many feet away

closing the gap

would wake you

and the trees

would push in to stop me

from reaching you

 

the closer you are

the darker the night

and the stars rise up

ever so high

 

 

 

here I leave you with…

here i leave you with what is desired

a moonstone and a journey

slipping from the fingers

live and die

opposites of life

take them and cry

tomorrow it brings happiness

if the mind is clear

 

Fruit

it takes several piercings for the skin to break

dull knife slows the irreversible process

juice spatters on shirt already stained with ochre

oxygen discolors the flesh

a taste like vinegar permeates

slicing further, the seeds spill on the ground

reverse and position themselves between toes

sprouting stems and leaves that reach the sky

gazing at the moon, the promise of an end comes

and the knife shatters the core- the life spine-

flesh splits open and another sky empties on my palm

rubbing it against the shirt to clear

it becomes trapped and dull knife slices open 

the only thing keeping this being alive

 

Shih-Fang Wang

Midnight Moon

 

I remember those days

When I got off my evening shift

You always shined upon me with your rays

Midnight Moon, you were my heavenly gift

                                                    

The night was so deep

And the road so dark

Loneliness over me would creep

Then out of the clouds your light would spark

 

It was a long long way

And you just silently followed me

To disperse my mood so grey

Allowing me to be fear free

 

You accompanied me on the road

So I could travel alone yet joyously

Bliss you generously bestowed

Thank you for your loyalty

 

Patrick Draven

Huntsman's Moon

A soloist played by a street lamp in a shadowed corner’s usual haunt away from genteel passerby where only lost souls walk. Silhouetted like a living eclipse again against the sanguine moon, the bright stands in the exile of darkness.

Man and moon stand in two solitudes and he stands before its vexing light like an uncertain king on eve of battle before an eyeless sibyl prophetess confiding his dream like an offering to the night. 

The Moon.

Detached patron to dreams but confidante to dreamers, of kings and shepherds while flocks and armies stray. Like one on a cooling walk that takes pause in his pre-occupation at the solace of a hauntingly beautiful performance by a street harpist he likewise ceased in his step before one who captures his heart in silence set to music.

But restored faith in dream stepped in like a guardian angel taking one under the wing like the dark-winged angelic, driving away a hovering chickenhawk poised to strike as if an old shaman in answer to a new “prophet” who has held an isolated nomad tribe in thrall while he withers away to emaciation in untended isolation. He rises and steps in to face the illusionist a final time. He shrugs off the hands that tell him he should remain in hermitage and rest and speak confession.”I have nothing to confess, only that I believed”.

He sighed before the moon-lit road to the horizon over the sea, despair and wounded courage to its tone like a Celtic chieftain’s ghost haunting a kingdom built over brave warriors' bones. The interplay of moonlight over the waves like a mosaic’s tiles shattered and re-assembled by a sleepless artist in the sky till it seemed that masterpiece took form and face. As if sculptor,painter, and composer collaborated on a work of art that embodied all art- forms in inspiration and there stood one as ever swelled and broke a heart.

And his dreams would never be the same again...The sense of wonder rejuvenated for he had not believed in angels since ten when word came he would not see his father from the war again. The moon-lit glow enlustred the ebb-tides as if a goldsmith applied his craft to a multi-faceted flow of precious gems and by that angelic radiance he so beheld her. His muse.

Mark A Fisher

seize the sky

all the moonstone moments were forgotten

among all the thousand sacrifices she’d made

happiness was washed up on stony beaches

like treasure maps with clues that are hidden

among all the thousand sacrifices she’d made

court documents signed and copied

like treasure maps with clues that are hidden

in the nearly forgotten shadows of words

court documents signed and copied

holding onto promises once made

in the nearly forgotten shadows of words

tattered by way too many years

holding onto promises once made

when they’d looked at a full moon

tattered by way too many years

yet all she needed had been the sky

when they’d looked at a full moon

happiness was washed up on stony beaches

yet all she needed had been the sky

all the moonstone moments were forgotten

I-15

it was another moonrise

over ragged hills and sand

where the Mojave day ends

and the desert springs

to life in the darkness

still warm from the sun

white yucca flowers open

to the white yucca moths

flying through the moonlight

that spills across

the unseen landscape

catching on the brown shapes

that dart and slither and hop

across desert varnish

blacker than the night itself

with all the myriad stars

that shine down coldly

into eyes too busy living

in the shadows

of an unseen wilderness

just beyond

the freeway lights

Mike Turner

In the Moon’s Blue Light

 

The cold blue light of the full Winter Moon

Illuminates snowy landscape

Trees draped with Nature’s lace

Sounds muffled, quieted

Diamonds glistening against the frost

Stars twinkling against black velvet skies

Shadows lengthening under silent boughs

And for a moment, the Earth ceases its rotation

Time itself standing still

As we are bathed in beauty and peace

In the Moon’s blues light

 

* This poem was displayed in the 2024 Spring exhibition, “Polarity,” hosted by the Detroit Lakes Poetry Walk, Detroit Lakes, MN USA. It has not previously appeared in print.

Where the Moon Kisses the Sea

 

Where the Moon kisses the sea

Where ocean embraces sky

There I hope to find Thee

And linger by-and-by

 

We’ll dance to Nature’s choir

Share kisses meant to be

And our Love shall never tire

Where the Moon kisses the sea

 

 

*  This poem was previously published in the anthology, Emerald Coast Review, October 2023

Holding the Moon

 

Holding the Moon

In the palm of my hand

Diamond starlight glints

On a robin’s-egg-blue ocean

Gazing upon her crafters and seas

I fall from celestial heights

Into azure, icy depths

The shock a balm

Cooling boiling passions

Becalming raging storms

Cyclones dropping to a zephyr

Ruffling the pond’s surface

Upon which I float

Staring into the heavens

Of a glimmering soap bubble

Joyously bursting into a shower of rainbowed droplets

Leaving me holding the Moon

In the palm of my hand

Joe Grieco

ADVICE TO SPINOZA

 

Never trust anybody who hasn’t done time

And don’t even think about trusting a cop

Cops drink like fish

 

Never walk the streets in New York or LA or Amsterdam or Taos

Loaded down with stuff in both hands

You need to be able to throw a punch at the drop of a hat

 

Return all hearts to their rightful owners

They were never yours to keep

Hearts are just loaners

 

Remember the lotus flower is born out of mud

Remember the moon is a stone of constant beauty, in constant orbit, out of heart’s reach

Remember the tigerfish never once backed down from a fight

Remember all hearts are loners

Marianne Szlyk

Return to Maryvale Park

This stream is part of the landscape
I am limited to. In this place, 

I make my home, look but don’t touch,
watch for turtles on brown-gray rocks.

But I don’t see them this summer.
Is the time wrong, too cold, too hot,

water too high, park too noisy
for these turtles. Fish continue

circling stones that fool me to think
that they are turtles. Stones don’t move.

Again I don’t see the turtles
who lived here last year. Without them,

this landscape will become a blur,
the stream’s stench, the buzz of voices.

I will walk my circuit of streets
lined with red and white azaleas,

springtime-roses, work trucks and dogs
guarding tidy, brick homes.

 

1979

            After Herbie Hancock’s “Finger Painting”

Piano notes drift
like dancing snow
along the Charles River.

Orange light
drowns out the last stars.

Concrete towers,
Harvard’s red-brick buildings,
thick hedges
conceal the city.

The notes won’t stick.

Melting on asphalt, they
turn to rain.
Drivers stop and start.
Ten years ago
Armstrong walked on the moon.

Now it’s too
far.  It’s easier
to imagine
caravans leaving town 
while snow falls.

In this world, the sky
belongs to birds
and clouds alone. Drivers
without stars
follow the river.

 “1979” was originally published in Bold + italic.

 

Midsummer Moonrise

            After “Midsummer Moonrise” by Dwight William Tryon (1892)

 

At first glance, you see
just prettiness,
a haze of green, flurries
of brushstrokes,
scent of turpentine.

Be patient.
Yellow and white flowers
appear, plants
for which you’ve no name.
You might know them

 

as you walk past them. Or
you might not.
The gash of silver
water opens
up, reflecting chalky

 

moonrise, yet
water does not dis-
solve this parched moon. 
With time, you see needles
on pine trees,

copper blight elsewhere
as wind rifles
through.  The gash of water
widens.  You
smell the earth at night.

 

Originally published in Mad Swirl

 

Ellyn Maybe

RUBY IS MY BIRTHSTONE (HAIKU) 

I am a moonchild.

I dig tie dye and giraffes.

I am here to stay.

A CHANGE A FEW STEPS MAKE (HAIKU) 

Walking on the Moon.

Shifts perception like a gaze.

How high till life swerves.

A DIFFERENT VIEW (HAIKU) 

Eclectic music.

Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

Kaleidoscopic.

Inalegwu Alifa

Translucence

All sand and stone mines on the planet earth,

big and bright in nature’s translucence

cast courage on all with and without faith

during life’s dread looking for an essence

essential for fragrant flavor on earth.

Faith in the moonstone’s essence

 

grows very fast in showing great candour.

Hour to hour in harmony with nature,

illness goes into the air in a minute’s favour

just like the Nazarene is of nurture’s

kindness seen around the moon’s splendor

like eternity is seen in nature.

 

Moonstones don’t have eyes on faces

near nostrils above mouths with tongues.

Opening and closing their faces for all races,

prayer becomes words in the rhythm of the tongue.

Quintessence is the virtue of every race

running against split bodies alienated by tongues.

 

Split souls are running to their bodies

through mind-feeling and consciousness

uniting broken parts in bodies

vainly sensing a departure from holiness

with the virtue of peaceful bodies,

x-outing wickedness

yammering on a zero-sum game bodies

zinging in songs of peacefulness.

 

Addiction to beauty makes moonstones

brazen before mirrors and walls

capturing the sense of beautiful bones

dashingly around necks and wrists forming balls

each of which sings for the lone

favourite song of joy lest a fall

 

gnash a set of teeth

however highbrow the image appears like a word

inspired by the moonstone for hands and feet;

justly for all the world,

kindly for lovers of beads;

lovers of moons more than swords.

 

Moonstones call the spirit of bodies,

nay believers in cerebral courage

ousting fatal fear from bodies.

Pounding waves below a ridge

quickly beat the heart to make a story

running down to form a bridge

slipping from edges to make a leap.

  

 

 

Ascensional

About the moonstone is this chant

between my heart and the heart of the world

calling on the spirit of the river bank

doing justice to the moonstone in a word.

East or west if I must be frank,

gemstones come into the world

 

holding pieces together to form brand

in styles beautiful for necks and legs;

jointly beautiful for hands and bands.

Knackless miners mix up stones to make pegs

low in quality but good for hands

bearing beautiful wands.

 

Newly designed jewellery

opening up the miner to novelty

pre-arranged by nature’s cultler making eternal cutlery

quintessential in novelty

remaking the world’s artistic delivery

sent through the bravery

 

ticking like a clock

uniting broken pieces together

veering in a clockwise, not against the clock

whispering through the sounds of other

x factors as inconstant as a dock

yearning not to go further

zealously like a shepherdless flock.

 

Ascensional is the moonstone

breaching defects from the outside

conversing with marrows and bones

dancing inside the soul whose sides

ease the body in a prone

fragile position of weakness.

 

Graviception creates gravitational attraction

held and released by nature’s force

in the skies and from the earth’s positon

juggles gemstones without force

knocking bits and pieces in motion

leaving behind cracks for a clotheshorse.

 

Moonstones are translucent

near objects that are colloid

or solid in shapes whose essence

prays for union with liquids void

quietly in motion’s transcendence

running to heavenly soil.

 

 

Feldspars

After the fashion of potassium aluminium silicate,

barring any protrusion

costing the formation of intricate

dead air amazing eyes as the crust indicates

earth’s stone of the moon’s television

filling the world with a gate.

 

Gaps in-between rocks speak

holiness of the holes holding minerals

inside earthen substances that creak,

jostling with the earth’s materials

klaxoning close to minerals that squeak

loftily about stones and mineral materials.

 

Moonstones are our feldspar

newly ancient through the ages,

old as the moon at par

per bit of time in no rage

quickening the breaking of cars

running on high speed like no sage

 

solving wisdom’s paradox

through rock-hitting without any sense

unfolding eternity’s orthodox

vision of the moon’s essence

winning against heterodox

x-axis pausing the moon’s quintessence,

young or old as the fox

zinging a yawn to make a sentence

 

about moonstones and the tale of feldspars

burning to beautiful sizes

costing highly in value at par

dangling on air’s prizes

earning merits as far

from the south to north’s clamping as with a vise.

 

Gemstones speak about the crust

holding twelve plates as one

in the lithosphere whose thrust

joggles the earth’s changing states as one

kicking against abrasion’s thrust

lopsidedly bringing the plates as one.

 

Moonstones are feldspars in ace-colour

nicely made to be beautiful

on all surfaces where flavour

pacifies nostrils with the scent of fruits

quietly nourishing all who savour

ripe fruits like miners picking broken moonstones like fruits.

Tim Tipton

Stones 

(for my great-grandfather, M.B. Rising)

You stoop to pick up yellow pebbles

glistening wet.

Click them on your tooth to confirm 

with your ear what your eye already knew:

stone.

Amber does not click and it does not glitter.

It is filled with warm light.

Ancient fossil resin tumble up from the sea.

You do not find it, it finds you.

The warm light draws your eye.

Yet you keep searching.

The best piece you ever found 

was big as a knuckle.

Color of a dog’s eye, and deep within,

a million-year-old fly’s wing.

You were not even looking,

your mind was elsewhere.

When that light shone from a nest of shell

and seaweed, penetrating your cluttered 

thoughts through the corner of your eye.

Seeing it was like waking from a long absence, 

like discovering a poem.

Boredom

It’s a high crime night tonight

The moon is frozen still

Boredom was on, it had killed everything around me

While sleepers had beautiful dreams

Boredom weaved through me, It didn’t speak

It demanded nothing from me

Wherever I went it was there

I threatened it and all it did was grin

I took it for long walks in the moonlight

It dragged its ass, it stood absolutely still with its ears cocked

Its feet planted firm

Its eyes blinked

And every thought in my head disappeared.

There wasn't any doubt, only light.

A Poet, to Himself

Strange night.

No sirens.

Quiet streets.

No weather to speak of.

Good night to write.

But no, I can’t get up for adventure.

I feel a kind of dullness.

My head is in a puddle.

My neck turns.

My cartilage moves.

I don’t like the sound of my bones.

Strange, atomic night.

The dogs in the neighborhood are

going crazy, running in circles.

Loneliness, so alive, so big

that it is almost a creature on its own.

I have slept alone all week

reaching across the sheets

to find loss, not warmth.

I take myself into the night.

Walk the streets for rapture.

Early rising moon,

pour into me.

I can’t breathe without you.