PETALVIEW

The stars— 
captured mayflies 
in crystalline suspension
 —echo their harmonies.

Each  unique instrument
across this spectrum
adds to the symphony
  of the multiverse.

Hearts explode 
within the macroplasm.
  
 Lungs expand and collapse here.

Shadows of  these events 
seen as  grotesque forms  
interplay against the interior
of these lit up circus tents.

  The filaments of rungs 
to which we've clung 
remain as diminishing
 notes ever present. 

  We who are shown clearly 
are now fleeting
  from the point of view 
of the stars 

DROP SEED

Just because I dreamed that I fell off the Earth 
and while I dropped through outer space slung 
shot from our planet's thrall and out to bank 
about the Sun only to be further outward flung 
to drop away from our fuzzy gray Oort Cloud 
and glowing Astrosphere into the spinning 
gravity well of the nearest star system only 
about four light years away from here and 
dried like a mummy on the way only to be 
resurrected on another planet in a drop of 
water doesn't mean it couldn't really happen. 

excerpt from Speed Demon

a short story by Shaun Lawton

SAILBOUND BOOK

How the cry of a gull or the roar of the wind
becomes our story, how we are written into it.
This is how we are drawn into the ocean. 

The odyssey I've fallen into has passed depths
to be measured against the brightness of a dream
and reflected back at me, the haunting image
of my past's alternate selves, one in particular
heading the rest, a forgotten waif, made the best of it,
Pinky's there, in his vest, the rest in their Sunday worst.

The host of forgotten fantasies, to which I toast
a languid goodbye, at the most, drifting along
unheard of among cities on the coast
where the foam of waves whispers my name
in your hoarse voices, so the crash of waves
upon the rocks cries out your names in my own voice
and mingled, our soliloquy melts upon the winds above the sea.

SARDONYX

Point the deathbone
At the moon, anoint
A blue ceramic bowl
With drops of blood

Study the splatters
Of streaking fluids
The way you would
A snowflake or tulips

Enter the cavern of
All of our fears so
We can cast shadows
On Christendom

A patch of leprosy
Grows upon the thigh
Of a virgin while they
Thrive ruining resistance

As the ocean wind on
The sails of a lost
Ship captured by us
With persistence

Turns out to reflect
The worst piracy of
Our lives stared at
In mirrors of our I

MINERAL'S DREAM

A very old tree totters over 
Into the wildwood far away
With a sound approaching 
The memorial of thunder
To its standing survivors
Outspread in their foothold
Through funereal compost
Melding with mossy fungus 
Under the loam of bedrock
Adding another microtone 
To the growing forest song

MUSIC IN THE MIRABELL

by Georg Trakl

A Fountain sings. The Clouds stand
In the clear Blue looking tender.
Deliberately silent People go
In the Evening by the old Garden. 

The Ancestral Marble is gray.
A train of birds clips in the far Wide 
A Faun with dead Eyes looks
Toward Shadows in their Dark slide.

The Leaves fall red from the old Tree
And circle in through the open Window.
A Firelight glows in the Room 
And paints trumpeted Fear-of-phantoms.

A foreign Stranger enters the House.
A Dog rushes by a dilapidated swing.
The Maid snuffs a Lamp out
The Ear hears night's Sonatasounds. 

GEORG TRAKL

1887 - 1914

The original poem

is engraved in German

upon a plaque in Mirabell
Garden, Salzburg Austria

(translation courtesy

of Shaun Lawton

SLC Nov 2014)

THORNSWRATH

(And man’s groupmentality grew
and grew until it threatened to
blot out even the Sun.
Thus was borne into the pupils
of a new generation
the spark necessary to light
the fuse which would race
upstream to blow out this growing
smog of obfuscating filth.
Even the roses curl up
in abject defiance,
to lend their thorns
to my wrath.

Dubbed a knight for the Guardians
of Ambush, I pledged my allegiance
to no army but that of the trees,
23 years ago: A heraldic Oak
has lain its branch upon my shoulder
in the land of New Canaan,
in the year of my reckoning, 1988.

Upon my fierce countenance
the world’s facade splits apart
into halves: the chasm lain exposed
between has become my battleground
and new home.

Trolling for gemstones
slipped under the bridge.
Lost in a full moon reflection
wavering on black water.
Aspiring to be a hero to
every son and daughter.)