april moon

all through the cooler nights of april
I wrote my songs and stories

pausing only
for moments taken
to gaze
into the pallid mystery
of a poet’s moon
that shone
sometimes a feeble glow
sometimes hardly present
yet at other times
a golden balloon
abreast of the horizon
at first rising

I wrote down almost half
of everything I ever knew

penned to illuminate
and clarify
to obfuscate
and to destroy
I wielded this pen of mine
to make the necessary
private admissions
reveal myself in unguarded words
and personalised glittering symbols
the shaman of slippery words
with his onion staff
unpeeled

I sang and sang
while the moon went past

night after night
as it cooled
I sang slower
sang quietly
kept voice barely within the sound
until at last
it was hardly more
than a whisper
that could have been the breeze
I felt
ruffling my coat
worn long as talisman
and to kiss this
the moon of poets farewell
for she is gone
and I
am almost
done in
by the cool of april nights

the songs
and all the stories
are etched deep into the paper
no longer secret words
nor enigmatic
merely a kind of historical accounting
for the poet moon that was

I abhor
the coming silence

---

© Frank Prem 2003, 2016

April Moon appeared in The Australia Times Poetry Magazine Vol. 4 No. 4, 2016

28/01/18