Invention In Lower Case

it was the moon that fell through. a lump of gray astronaut

pale acne-blasted, an orphan of the dome, floating in a pond

face down; gasping... green brass minnows surge through diatoms

that have no word for moon; a legion of blind unicorn gall stones -

invisible to naked eyes; uncountable geometries horde the dark waters

they cannot disapprove or disobey. large mouth bass inhale calcium polygons

they have never met; they have no word for a large mouth bass -

that hasn't always been unknown,

as september is meaningless

And now, even more so, the meaning is less,

without the moon... so

the last tide is false. a satellite has lost it's grip and displaced a placid

jewel of ice cold pause. in the backwoods of these. words. a. moon.

is. breathing. in. a. void. teeming. with. ancient. life.

it is a void, unfamiliar to a native of heaven. this void used to rise and fall

in obedience to the wax and wane. in accord with her orbit.

but now it burns the ocean of serenity with irony's forge.

pounding the stainless steel of unfathomable loss;

even the dross sustains a shape of things to come undone -

when the hammer falls and the blacksmith is a poet

born to snatch fables from mayflies. a natural.

the hammer was in the hand before the moon gained

a face or an ocean to adore it. it was there,

ticking like a season, burgeoning with locusts -

holding off the mob; the moon was long ago, slipping off the roof -

long before firemen met lightning.

the tide was a pious fool.

the measure was not the span of the impending verse, but the hour of it's

callous beauty, assembled. a lunacy, stripped of all moons.

and only the sun remaining -

to behold the uncanny descent of a faithful, vestigial goddess.

a yellow throne. a yellow eye. and the sun's first chill...

as wave after wave of syllables sum succulent sorrows -

savoring sacred symmetries, asymmetrically... summoning -

super luminary strawberry switchblades,

saving sanity for questions with question marks.

this poem fell through. a lung collapsed or not.

and the moon is at the bottom of my heart.