Poem: 'The Loudest Dream'

THE LOUDEST DREAM/ 

BROOD OF THE DARKEST MOON 

she paints me this, 

         lunar nights 

             dark as a drum 

lost in woods 

transfigured to 

rivers of light 

a raven alights, 

becoming a python 

which, slithering 

around the oak 

twists into a frog 

crushing the frog 

it ignites, becoming 

a myrmidon with 

a sphinx voice

she lures me

into the lake, 

her limbs become 

its shore, the 

reflected moon 

shivering away in 

shoals of salmon 

I wear her jaws 

around my wrist, 

so cool and moist, 

her toes as jewelry 

at my throat, 

her ribs are 

my fingers 

she turns 

three times, 

fragmenting 

into a shock of 

crimson salamanders 

cupping reflections 

of the moon 

in their teeth 

then she paints me 

            lunar nights 

                dark as a drum

Original Art by Karen Smithey

Published in:
‘ICE RIVER no.6’ (USA –March 1990)
‘RAMRAID EXTRAORDINNAIRE no.3’ (UK – November 1994)
and in collection:
‘THE MAN WHO DRANK THE MOON’
 edited by Pete Presford (UK – March 1994)