Morning Jewels

Richard Hartwell

Swung from tips of tender cypress boughs,
Beads of brilliant dew bejewel the morning:
Fairy ointments, night oils on new growth,
Globular prisms gather to split the new day,
Light from the narrowly degreed dawn
Hastens horizontally across the garden,
Compressing shadows with each moment;
Illuminations of diamonds and emeralds
Explode from feathered, evergreen tips,
Regally attired, awaiting supplication.

The LA Moon

Amit Parmessur

The pregnant American moon dies away
from the unkempt LA sky
From the wide window,
perched in near emptiness, I can see
an empty page
in the bittersweet sky, one upon which
I am trying again to decipher the pledges
made by an unfaithful angel

I have traveled from clime to clime,
from sky to dark caves,
like an orphaned heart
chiming with sorrow and dread,
and the American moon is nothing different

To every place I’ve gone,
the moon is suffering enormously
from those intent looks of hungry folks,

She is suffering from the severe scars that
exaggerate what she wants to unveil,
her sore flesh looking like a very
pale reflection of a confident Goddess

Is the stained Los Angeles moon
another unsuccessful project?

Is she another incomplete canvas deserted
by a painter tortured by visions too
beautifully painful, just like those

I regret when
I think of what has vanished from my life?