Poem: Bitten

 

Bitten

 

the moon

had been bitten down

into a nimbus

on a stoic cloud.

 

it was abused now, almost an animal,

but no one wanted the scars.

it was succulent with wounds

to taunt us hypocrites.

 

it

 

played hourglass

to our calculative, scheme-ful splenetic pace.

it was something to be feared yet prayed,

chasing us,

through these self-made riddles of delusion.

 

the moon

 

it embraced the oceans

till they suckled its silk light;

and it became the sickle

of their sparkling emotional harvest.

the moon

it was the first stone

employed as a tool,

before pestle, before weapon.

 

it was mistaken once as the eye of a great bird,

high over a mountainous heart,

where it festooned magic and hope

into breaths of possibility.

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11/13... changed the "sickle" phrase

11/10  more edits, hoping for excellence through neurotic fixation

11/6   ... "played" replaces "it was the".   Fixed typo in second-to-last stanza