The Cerebral Catalyst

In twilight's fading light
Moth dashes itself
In ruin
Against faded neon sign
Striving for that beauty
That flash of delicacy
Such fragile wings cannot bear
And I wonder at you
Your own fragile self
Butterfly wings
Sodden with orchid tears
Sorrows running so deep
So true
To what you don't want to be
That its shades are imbued in you
Deep blues of mourning
Scattered black ashen in your fluttering
Streaks of yellow
Like flashes of pain
Runs throughout your pattern
Your flight, your fall, your ascension
You are a wonder of life
A creature beyond comparison
You are what most of us
Would have of ourselves
Yet your melody
How it chains you
Defines you
Is a crime upon your soul
When that same song
How sweetly it has guided us,
Those who flock to your bardic trill
You are my dark angel
My star in the night sky
I would that I knew how
To capture you
And set you free
Of yourself
Your hurt
Your walls
Without taking away
The beautiful dusting of your wings
A memory of you
Left in trace upon my hands.

II. The Silken Wheels: by Moneer Sadraii

Tiny speck of mote,
sitting on my knee and beginning to dote,
your wings,
a brown spectacle of plain ambiguity,
your wings,
like gossamer on a wheel
that's still on it's way round and round,
a whirl of painted sounds.
Oh, tiny immobile now,
now that I've gone and touched that sprinkling of dust,
that sheer sheen of dust like sweat,
after sex and before love,
that remote failure of your beauty,
your death is in my hands,
oh cruelty!
What shame had brought your winged embrace
to glance upon my skin and make me chaste,
again I see that antennae speech,
your flickering, splattering, reach
for me as I ride your adventure,
watch the subtle movements begun,
then you take off,
your primal spectrum filled with trust,
let my tongue lick in lust,
for I dream,
I strive,
I wish I too were as beautiful as you.

III. Sulfur Moth: by Tamsyn Grey

I projected love out of rooms
diffused in the glow of
small yellow candles,
past the mind static and
insecurities that blanket,
cover and bury,
through the arch of mile
and longitude broken
into hours three

and it bounced back to me like a gum sphere
untouched

missed and shaded
some color too pretty to love,
too brilliant to hate,
bent into something dioxzanine
just on the other side of midnight

I was standing too close
to blue flames, mesmerized by the flicker
of their dance against my breath
as if they know not how to singe a wing
or dissolve it to something brighter
than a fading glittered dust,
trapped in the valley of fingerprints

if only a stain as such could be remembered,
imprinted,

savored or wished for,
a sparkling magnetic coating,
too brilliant to hate,
too dirty to love
washed away with a single tear,
as though it were never there

Once again I stood by yellow candles
gum sphere in hand, soft shadowed
and broken, blurred in insecurity,
misguided by hope, and waiting for three
hours to meet my desires

bent into something azure,
or the color of fall evenings
too precious to be forgotten
too vivid to be ignored

a treasure never taken for granted

______________________________________
Keri Baker has been writing since she was a teenager, and intends to keep going 'til they plant a tulip in her and deem her fertilizer. For the non she is going back to college at the tender age of thirty-three to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Circus clown and wild goat tamer have been listed among the possibilities.

Moneer Sadraii is a mountain climber, a student, a small business entrepreneur, a Persian pastry chef, a singer, a dancer, a professional carting driver, an artist, a clown, and last but not least, a grateful writer.

Tamsyn Grey is a free spirit, artist & writer who resides in western Pennsylvania where she is currently seeking a means to quit her day job in social services.

Posted 05.07.05

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