There’s a moon out tonight. Nothing special about that. Unless you make it special. Your poem will be a night poem. The sounds of night. The night sky. Yes, the moon and stars. Silhouettes in the night. Paint the romance of night with your words. Write the despair of night with your words. Just don’t take all night!
Marie’s Night:
AFTERGLOW (A Nonet)
As the sun
slips beneath the water,
Her afterglow lingers above –
Much to wooing moon’s delight.
And they bask in the glow
Those fleeting moments
They call their own,
As their hearts
Become
One
Walt’s Mooning:
SHARING THE MOON
Soft summer breezes wafting,
a gentle sifting through the poplar branches.
It enhances the night as I am serenaded
by cicada bugs and the distant rumble
of locomotive engines. Humbled by the expansive
evening sky, I am mesmerized. The lure of lunar
luminance draws my glances on the odd chance
that someone else eyes this same satellite.
It is a great night and it feels right to share
this scene. Over a distance, the same moon
is simultaneously viewed – together, a bond
brightly borne. Come morning,
before the promise of a new day, the display
of this starlit night brings you both to this moment.
Under this shared summer sky; a his and hers moon;
we take joint custody of a shared passion
POETIC BLOOMINGS 
Responses
Now, there’s a coincidence I can’t ignore. I just wrote this bit, relating to something on the news a while back, about the theory (more or less) that the backside of the moon is home to the remains of a smaller moon that came too close.
if there were two moons,
which was the true moon
the one who rode piggy back?
or the the face with no back?
did you eat the little lunatic
who fell into your orbit, sister moon?
is she hiding in the dark
is she plotting in the dark
do you only think she’s beaten, sister moon?
If there were two moons,
which would the owls call,
what name would the wolf howl
if there were two
Brilliant piece of logic and great fun as well.
Way to start off the prompt Walt & Marie Elena !
WE CAPTURE HER IN FEEBLE SIGHT
When the moon turns upon herself,
folds into a rocking cradle
of night yellow, it is not for
timidity or her fear of
human slings of ridicule.
The night queen sits enthroned,
suspended high in the heavens
to spare us her full-blown magnificence.
She proffers a slivered quarter
or half her cratered loveliness.
The moon tones down the brightness
of her gold and nestles in the crook of
planetary haze. We cannot comprehend
the twinkling yellow moons like
twin night fire flickering in our eyes.
We capture her in feeble sight,
see her smallness in the astrological
distance that space travelers know so well
but we remain blind to her power,
the ease with which she turns the tides.
#
Wow, I love how you show her graceful strength in the last line, Sal. Beautiful.
Lovely one. I love slivered quarter!
Applause…
Absolutely beautiful!
Absolutely Beautiful!
Great! No matter what face she shows, she always pulls us to her.
I agree with the others … just lovely.
meg
Walt, I love your moon poem. 🙂 I especially like this : “together, a bond
brightly borne.”
And the end is fantastic. 🙂
Thanks Megan. Had gotten far away from writing romance of late. I needed to prove I still had it in me. Glad you liked it. That’s encouraging.
My Nineteenth Birthday
Mom invited my best friend
and the guy next door over
for lasagna and blueberry cheesecake
and then we three took a walk,
miles up the back roads and paths
into the State Gamelands.
My neighbor, a hunter,
knew his way around even at night.
To the tune of crickets, peep frogs
and an occasional owl,
three long-time friends
walked through the woods
in the light of the full moon—
laughing, talking and joking.
My last birthday as a teenager,
a sweet, memorable one.
Imprints of Guilt
Father Night sweeps dust upon your cloak
an incubus that haunts life’s fervent truth
and though the breeze incites veracity
dense matter stifled chains forgotten youth.
You toss and turn, your trunk a newborn babe
with residue beneath the skins of crime
sweat stains the satin sheets you lie upon,
leaves imprints on guilt’s vessel every time.
Laurie: loved your title & poem. Very nice.
Marie- Beautiful!!
Thanks Laurie and Benjamin for the kudos! LOVIN’ your work out here!!
meg
In the Night Sky
“Metaphor for the night sky: A trillion asterisks and no explanations”. ~Robert Brault
I’ll never offer
explanations…but look up.
You might find me there.
***
I love this, RJ!
Nice. Good quote, too.
PERFECT TIMING
Noticing the arrangement:
half moon
pale in mid morning sky
placed perfectly between two weeping willows.
I noticed you
just at this moment
and I stopped to be a spectator
of your glorious placement.
This is one of the last times I really
relished in the moon’s presence.
I’m so glad I looked up when I did.
~Hannah Gosselin
Marie, I love this line especially,”Much to wooing moon’s delight.” Playing with those extra “o’s” wicked fun!
Walt, you really captured the moment beautifully. I enjoyed the “gentle sifiting.”
Really enjoyed yours Barbara, interesting facts and cool coincidence as well! 🙂
Sweet Sunday smiles to all! 🙂
Thanks, Sweet Hannah! 🙂 I LOVE having you back with us again out here. Your style and voice are coming back, and I’m so glad for you, and for us!
meg
And keep that smile coming. I can use it! Walt
Thank you both for a home to come back to and for the kind welcome! Smiles always. 🙂 @ Barbara: you’re very welcome!
Hi, Hannah! Thanks.
GOODNIGHT
When you gaze at it
What do you see?
America’s achievement
Was getting there.
To take a chance
You shoot it.
Children’s books
Say goodnight to it.
It lights your way
And marks your time.
Lover’s do it.
Scientists study it.
Children look for the man.
It moves the tides
and signals harvest.
Perhaps it is the soul of Earth.
Three fabulous offerings from the talented Jane Shlensky!
Under the Same Moon
Reflected light appeals to lonely me,
waiting sky-faced and moon-touched
in the night for a time when I can trade
the moon’s golden glow for your bright eyes,
radiant with hope that life will be kind to us,
will help us find our shadowed way across
dark continents to a common ground,
not blasted with white day but tenderly
soothed by cool slate nights, second-hand sun
gently guiding us, first-hand love joyfully
sustaining us.
a shadorma
Moonlit
O lovely
mirroring bauble,
transform bright
day to night’s
purposes, sunlight made new,
in black velvet night.
Below, all
things of earth shimmer
silver blue,
shadows touch
and pull our tidal souls to
light and hope, star-sprung.
From childhood,
I have reached for you,
marking your
pilgrim path
to full-faced, golden longing
beyond all reason.
Moon Songs
(For Volodya)
You are going to break my heart.
I feel it already sitting on this night bench
and looking up, dazzled by moonlight’s tinge
and singing, “Over the mountain, over the sea,
That’s where my heart is longing to be,
O let the light that shines on me,
Shine on the one I love.”
I know already that I have not found my love;
he’s out there somewhere, in Bukhara or Moscow,
looking at this moon tinting his world,
all hollowed out and seeking, broken
by his equivalent of you,
and I know that he aches for me,
here beneath this moon,
sending his longing out like radar,
like tiny ephemeral ropes of moon glow,
as he sings, “Somewhere out there,
beneath the pale moonlight,
someone’s thinking of me
and loving me tonight.”
Wishing on moon magic.
singing to moon power,
two years later, we will recognize
one another, in China, sprinkled
with the same moon dust.
And we will sing, “It’s not the pale moon
that excites me, that thrills and delights me,
oh, no, it’s just the nearness of you…”
And it will be.
..
Shadows Play Across the Ness Lough
Evening plays tricks
the mist across the moon laden moor
shows the shadow’s movement.
Star pocked remains the sky,
playful pokes into the cosmos.
A splash distracts; an act that replays frequently
on these foggy nights. A gurgle of bubbles
becomes the song of the lough chanteuse. Distant
is the calling; a caterwauling as the cries
of the creature enchant. It cannot be proven
but the legend of evenings along Loch Ness
performs another slight of disbelieving eyes.
A night poem for thought. Very enjoyable.
I Borrowed My Father’s Circular Saw
When I was young
my arms could curve
all the way to my father’s smile,
and his warmth encircled me
till I saw my dreams.
Then I turned my back
as I built my life,
eclipsing him into darkness,
yet I always knew where he was –
my ebb and flow of life.
Now the dimming stars
foretell his numbered days,
There seems no time to ask him,
“Can we extend our ladders
and demolish these growing clouds?”
Moonlit Romance (Shadorma)
Remember,
Our moonlit romance,
Silken words
Revealing
Sultry hearts set ablaze in
Love’s resplendent fire?
I’m including the notes I wrote on my blog to show how much I love this site… and Marie and Walt, you are BOTH frisky on this one, hee hee. Loved it. Keith, your photo is the perfect inspiration. I’m also leaving the blog link at the bottom. Peace, Amy
——————————————-
FROM MY BLOG: Poetic Bloomings (a newer prompt site – check it out!) asked for poems using the most irresistible prompt: “There’s a moon out tonight.” Aaaaaah. Amy
La Bella Luna
Grab a jacket and take my hand, darlin’.
Tonight, Monona’s lakeside is calling out to us.
La bella luna want to bathe all lovers
in beams of reflected light.
Here by the shore, slight chill of the autumn to come,
we’ll stroll, serenaded by so many crickets
and the soft paddle of ducks, looking for a late-night snack.
Though full-faced Old Man looms above, silverfoiled and shining,
the lightning bugs are not overwhelmed.
Blinking gold, ruby, emerald… just out of reach,
yet so near, teasing us, same as they did
when we were kids lying in field of wild grasses.
City lights are low, revealing buckets of stars
spilled in horoscope formations.
We needn’t prove our love beneath this panorama.
We are no longer teenagers, needing it now, now.
The silver moon lingers in streaks of our hair
as we walk and whisper, my hand in your jacket,
you arm slung around my shoulder as we make our way home.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/la-bella-luna-poetic-bloomings/
Thanks Amy. Although I’m writing from memory as long as I still have it.
Love your La Bella Luna, BTW!
Love’s Wake
Once a bitter conquest
Tainted for love’s whisper
Your voice is heard
In the shadow
In the hollows of the night
Under the moon’s
Sprinkled rays
A calm light is seen
Witnessed in the wake
Soft grays
Silver meek words
Slip betwixt
Stirred hearts
Into rippled romance
Resounding in the depths
Of love’s wake
[…] for Poetic Bloomings prompt to write a “night” poem. Echo this:FacebookEmailTwitterStumbleUponLike […]
CELESTIAL MAGIC
Across the water, blue
Splashes of amber
Melt to a different hue
As the sun settles there
He remembers its shine
On her face, her hair
Across the water, blue
The nightlight rises
On time, on cue
In moonbeams bright
She remembers the sparkle
Of his eyes in the light
Defying the odds of the celestial
Their orbits once paired
As something quite magical
Yet like the sun follows the moon
Their paths cannot cross
Neither at midnight, nor noon
2011-08-29
P. Wanken
Excellent, Paula. I love it when you rhyme.
You inspire me to at least TRY now and then….thank you! 🙂
This is so unromantic, I hesitate to post it!
Moonlit accrostic
Must I really close the curtains?
Only if I want to sleep
Or stop the neighbours looking in.
Not a single peep
Lest they see
If my house is untidy.
Go on admit it.
How could they do that?
To get one up on me!
Sometimes it is really that bright, like trying to sleep with a with a flashlight aimed at your eyeball.
The moon is more than romance. It is a night light to illuminate your dreams.
“A night light to illuminate your dreams” … there is a children’s book in there, Mike.
meg
From Serenade to Sonata
Inspiring.
The music of the night,
takes a darkened sky and performs
a transformation from the brilliance of day
to the briskness of dusk, and onward to the midnight
hours. Gentility in notation, an exploration of the sounds
that bring sight to a wanderer’s mindless thoughts. Moonlight
offersa symphony; a score that haunts and soothes, reminds and
taunts, an undaunting and relentless pursuit to the melodic beauty
inherrent in her mystery. Of all the orbs in history, the moon launches
many a lover’s heart to the door of true love’s reasoning. Any season becomes
a romantic departure for hearts sure and infatuate. And the music of a moonlighting
muse will not anguish or abuse a soul’s longing. It belongs to lovers in tune with the night.
Raptured by the moons
Steady gaze
Amid a starlit sky
That night
Our hearts laid bare
Captivated
Drawn forever nigh
The moon: is.
Always there,
beautiful.
Yet somehow it’s a pool of surprise.
It startles me like a sudden pain.
and catches
ahh the moon
my breath.
No period after “sudden pain”, and there was supposed to be a title:
between a gasp and a sigh
Luna, How I Revere You
Whether watching you explode
To birth, full, on a Tuscan hillside
Or dangle thin as my baby-finger’s
Nail-clipping, over the peak of our roof
I find myself weak in the knees
Moved to tears almost with such beauty
They say you are but a reflection of Sol
I say, where would he be without you
You write as clearly as you see.
Ganymede
Selena could draw blood tonight,
Her fingernail sharp upon the
Northern Cross. She whispers warning,
But Zeus turns away, a great swan
Intent upon his Nemesis,
Stretching love across the heavens.
Pegasus paces his great square
And suddenly the firmament
Springs alive, rushing down on us.
We lie still, counting our heartbeats,
Two children of Ganymede, drunk
Like poets under the new moon.
I really like this poem. From Ganymede, one would have 64 chances of being under a new moon.
Streetlights
Nighttime falls when you most expect it.
The death of the day is a new reality.
The long line of streetlights stand ready,
to cast a false shadow on what you see.
It’s what you don’t see in the nighttime
that keeps you muted in your naivety.
A full moon casts true shadows.
The running headlights cannot let it be.
So much false crying and laughing.
They bite hard while loosing their teeth.
The streetlights call out to no one.
Yet many will fall down beneath.
The spirit within each streetlight
calls out those desiring their sleep.
No missions in just after midnight.
Just tears welled up waiting to weep.
They gleam of new hope in the darkness.
They buzz as the die then they burn.
They speak the great truths of the nighttime.
They wish as they watch while they learn.
By Michael Grove
Very nice Michael!
OLD INK
The night is special poets-time.
Tis then the ghosts of poets past
peer o’er our heads and weep
into the liquid ink.
Their inspiration, darkly stained,
doth dance across the page.
With every midnight line
deep scratched on parchment’s face,
new generations find archaic words
best read by candlelight.
I hold no fear for my demise.
When brother Reaper calls my name
my ever-work will then begin.
I’ll find my nights filled as your muse,
a distant whisper in your ear,
and weep a river for your pen.
“Zombie Movie Climax”
So this crazy zombie movie scenario stars me
as me myself, and also as the zombie who shambles
patiently through the abandoned midnight neighborhood scene:
Hero-me stops running, grabs zombie-me by the lapels,
yells “Wake up! Smell the roses,” while shaking vigorously.
Close up of two faces. The living one: “Look at yourself!”
A spark ignites in the zombie’s eye. “You’re animated!”
The room spirals and goes bright in a frenzy of cellos.
Their clutch breaks as the hero cries, “You don’t have to act dead!”
The zombie’s mouth closes, then opens, then moans, “Oh. I see.
Animation. It’s all. I have. So. It has. To be. Good.
Enough. For me.” Dawn’s first rosy finger touches the east.
Zomb-me turns to look. On the face of it, life doesn’t hold
much for the vitally challenged. On the other ghastly
hand, what might a cadaver become, exploring the hills,
riding a cargo ship to Chile, learning how to dance,
dining with—who knows who—or what—on tacos de sesos?
DA
That Night
I wear black
and wish upon
the constellationesque freckles
of your right cheek
breath held fast
in clenched fists
and trembling teeth
as we talk it all away
shrouded in our inky
nothing,
until the earth itself
evaporates
and there is
only
the lonely liquid moon
and her starspilled tears.
De Jackson, doing what she does amazingly well. Wow.
meg
De, you are totally Ninja in this poem..
Am I like the moon?
Reflecting
the light
of the Son.
Illuminating
the way
for those
in darkness.
Kelly
Keep beholding and reflecting! (2 Cor. 3:18)
Amen, Kelly and Benjamin!
meg
Lune for the Moon
Longing to be whole
I look up
Breathe your fullness, light.
… and amen, De!!
meg
Mike – “Old Ink” is wonderful; makes me feel nostalgic in advance
Marie’s Night nonet inspired me to try one myself!
Night (A Nonet)
Like a cloak over her bare shoulders
Black night descends about the day
Pulling, shrugging, settling in
Day sighs in gratitude
Heaviness ,comfort
are to be hers
Night will rule
She will
sleep
Hi lolamouse
I’m not real sure what a nonet is but I enjoyed yours!
LOVELY, lolamouse!
Here you go, Benjamin:
A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second line eight syllables, the third line seven syllables, etc… until line nine, which finishes with one syllable. It can be on any subject and rhyming is optional.
meg
Thank you..
Moon Dreams
(with acknowledgement to Willie Dixon)
The dogs begin to bark,
and the hounds begin to howl,
the full moon silhouettes a cat,
sleekly dancing across the roofs,
my breath is held,
my heart skips a beat,
as my mind is drawn to you.
Long nights holding you,
harsh nights scolding you,
memories
and reveries,
linger in the moon light.
The owls are hooting
and the bats are wheeling,
the clouds drift silently,
but the full moon still beams,
casting shadows like ghosts,
as my breath is held
and the dogs begin to bark.
Long nights holding you,
harsh nights scolding you,
memories
and reveries,
linger in the deep night.
Tears are falling quietly,
no breath left to sob,
recalling beauty and sweetness
and a love that never was,
my heart beats faster,
as I dreamily close my eyes
and the hounds begin to howl.
Iain
Veiled Beauty
I thought of writing this when I took out the trash and decided to look up to see a gorgeous moon but only found stars in disappointment. It was a very beautiful, pleasant evening though.
Why do I long after your veiled beauty?
Why hide thyself amongst the clouds?
I’ve looked and cannot behold
I’ve searched and found thee not
Be not ashamed of thy loveliness,
thy healing radiance
For you are the lesser light bearer
to rule the night
a precious stone amid a star studded cast
and heavenly host
yet possessing no light of your own
but only as thou receive
is your boast
Oh, the beauty we can take in while taking out trash. Loving that attitude, Benjamin! Lovely poem, and I admire the old-school manner in which it is written.
meg
Thanks!
[…] Poetic Bloomings‘ prompt says, in part,Your poem will be a night poem. To remind yourself of aspects of night you may not have thought of visit the site to read the rest of the prompt and the poems by the hosts in response. […]
Sorry I’m so late. I’m lucky to be here at all again this week. I have only this one so far and am hoping for at least one more this evening. Everyone has written such marvelous poems for this prompt. Kudos all.
Moon Song
My light notes sparkle
Across Earth’s waters.
My deep tones create
Shadow Tag along
Ground’s rises and falls.
Rhythm remains slow,
Steady as seasons’
Passage through God’s time.
Within my long notes
Are soloists bold,
Choirs infinite,
And numbers varied.
My crescendo comes
With my darker mood
I leave Earth to light
Itself, while shouts of
Encore! penetrate
Night’s blackness throughout.
Mmmmm …. true Claudsie style. Thought-provoking and stunning.
meg
Navy blue hue nibbles
at cotton candy sky.
Goodbye day, hello night.
Nice snacky poem to satisfy your poetry cravings.
I like the tone “Navy blue hue nibbles at cotton candy sky”.
You go girl.
Shannon! There could not be a more perfect word than “nibbles” used right there. Truly perfect.
Ditto on the nibbles. You had me nibbling on your nibbles!
Late I am! Good Morning and Happy Holiday! Hope everyone is relaxing. I wrote a sonetto rispetto. Hope it reads well. Please feel free to critic. Loving on all of you, my fellow poets!
Amphitrite-Sailor’s Sonnet