How sweet the moonlight

[DieterM]

Our shadows, gracious dancers,
Rippling in slants of moonlight.
Our senses wide open,
Like the black, unblinking sky.

This lake, so dark,
This bark, so silent,
These sleeping waterlilies…
And our hands trail
In cold water…

Night cheeps
And wordless whispers,
Our secret longings,
Our dreams and pointless hopes --
To be a Saint, a Romeo,
To live and to be young again --
are woven and entangled
Like fibres of orb webs.

Fallen angels, black and lost,
We gaze and feel
And breathe in
The scent of roses,
Creeping up on us
Like ivy on ancient walls.

This lake, this balmy night,
The blue and milky shine…
Our regrets lift off
And fade into lightness
And ease…

How sweet the moonlight
And our summer sighs…

[Hawkman]

I always enjoy reading your offerings Dieter, and this is no exception. I feel it's sense of well being and revel in the images you've conjured up. But there are a couple of minor things which I would suggest might be improved. In S1 you end the verse with a trochee, two stressed beats, which is a little heavy in a verse which is generally more flowing. "like the black unblinking sky" would read a little better I think. I did wonder about an "unblinking sky" because as the moon's out I'd imagine the stars were too, and they blink all the time ;) but I don't really think there's that much wrong with the image in the context of the poem.

What is jarring is "our orb webs" in S3. If you've got or make orb webs, you become spiders, which I don't think is what you intended to convey. Actually this stanza has confusions of syntax and tense because the conclusion of the sentence has been placed in the middle. Consequently I'm not sure whether you should include the colon or not.

"Night cheeps
And our wordless whispers,
Our secret longings,
Our dreams and pointless hopes--
To be a Saint, a Romeo,
To live and to be young again--
are woven and entangled
Like the fibres of orb webs."

Would read coherently, and, I think, say what you were saying. Personally I have an aversion to ending lines with conjunctions, so I have moved the and from the end of line 1, but I suspect there will be differences of opinion on this.

I don't think there's anything else which bothers me about this poem. A pleasure to read.

Live and be well - H

[DieterM]

Thanks a lot, Hawk; your suggestions turned out as precious as ever. I edited the last line of S1 (it does flow better the way you suggested) and the whole of S3 as well. I don't mind if a conjunction is at the end of a line or at the beginning of the following line but, for reasons of coherence (it really looks better this way, alright), I followed your wish :-)) As for "our" orb webs or not "our" orb webs, well, I intended to say that were spiders weaving our own webs of pointless hopes; but it's quite good this way, too.

Best to you (and, behold, the sun's out, and very much so, today - as if it sufficed that I write some summerish lines to make it happen). Maybe it's true then - maybe we really can... ;-))