the moon tonight is an anachronism

[fahye]

(I needed to crystallise some concepts, and this was as good a method as any.)


the moon tonight is an anachronism

and dusk is a blue slap in the face that rises like honey,
lingers outside time and gravity, then falls --
falls like foam on a wave crest breaking --
twilight breaking (almost audibly)
into dark cream skies and fragile charcoal clouds.

half a soul leaves the earth at the speed of light
and returns in the blink of an eye;
meanwhile, its twin has wasted away
in photographs, in gossamer light,
in tidal waves and moon's dominion.

the moon: too large, too yellow, antique and faded
and older than the cities and the trees
and older than the skies around it
and older than the limning light;
an age profound and genteel.

parallax: all things change, with speed.

one century on either side and I would be grounded;
somehow I have been misplaced in space,
in this continuum of space and time together.

"in the future we will travel in time"

that was my time and I have travelled and now --
now I can't get back.

in the future there is a hotel like a knife-edge
and we're dancing in rooms like shells
and laughing like rockstars
and shining like similes.

the moon is anorexic and worn thin with time,
a wasting disease which we name
ana: to starve.
chronism: the time.

I have travelled,
tick tock tick tock and the timepiece says:
I will travel,
I am drawn towards all bodies larger than myself.
at the speed of light will I leave my century
(I have left my century)
and return before I have been born.
and dusk will rise like falling foam,
gravity's merciless negation
of our striving towards the paradox.

two centuries from now I will starve the clock until it spins
paper-thin and we will dance
chronic. wasted. still.

Comments

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

This er, predictably reminds me of Praiseworthy. I don't know how I feel about self-referential/self-consciousness of the 'shining like similes' variety ... on the other hand Ionesco used his own name/plays in Rhinoceros, so who knows! I can't say things at any length that aren't related to Ukrainian politicians right now :( but if you would like to be hit with an egg ... that is a trick I have learned from the Opposition ...

[nextian.livejournal.com]

The plays on "chron" are my favorite, I think, and does it really mean "to starve the time"? because that's fantastic if true and even better if false.

that was my time and I have travelled and now --
now I can't get back. rings a little awkward to me, as does
one century on either side and I would be grounded;
somehow I have been misplaced in space,
in this continuum of space and time together.


and older than the cities and the trees
and older than the skies around it
and older than the limning light;
an age profound and genteel. is lovely, really lovely. "limning light" is even sort of onomatopoeic.

The last stanza and the first line are both perfect. <3

[fahye.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't: I'm just playing on the modern 'ana' as slang for anorexia :)

Ugh, yeah, I'm not altogether happy with this as a poem - it was a whole lot of phrases and ideas on a page, and some of them wanted to be poetry so I pushed the other ones into it as well.

[littledust.livejournal.com]

God I love the word "limning".

The bits tied together by the moon and time are beautiful. The moon and the clocks and the starving time. To me it reads better without the "in the future there is a hotel" stanza, but IDK, YMMV. (I like acronyms.)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

...YMMV?

I am very uncool when it comes to acronyms, most of them I just guess at. I remember working out what ROFL was, and also taking, like, six months to realise that STFU was not actally a shortening of "stuff you".

[littledust.livejournal.com]

Your Mileage May Vary!

I pronounce acronyms in my head! I like "stuff you" (only mashed together to get STFU) better than saying the individual letters.