Fascination with Light
I recently discovered a longer version of "Fascination with Light" that I had forgotten. Do you prefer the shorter or longer version? Please let me know in the comments. I'm torn.
Do you prefer "Fascination with Light" with or without the last stanza? Please let me know in the comments, if you have the time. Thanks!
Fascination with Light
by Michael R. Burch
Desire glides in on calico wings,
a breath of a moth
seeking a companionable light,
where it hovers, unsure,
sullen, shy or demure,
in the margins of night,
a soft blur.
With a frantic dry rattle
of alien wings,
it rises and thrums one long breathless staccato
and flutters and drifts on in dark aimless flight.
And yet it returns
to the flame, its delight,
as long as it burns.
And still it returns on incessant wings—
ruthless grey monarch of the night air.
It flutters and stares with huge primitive eyes,
and it sees beyond ruinous nights
to all the loveliness inherent there;
and it sings all the hideous despair
of its unworthiness, in a frenzy of wings;
and its desolate womb holds incurled in silk
the husks of dread kings and pale lovers.
Michael R. Burch Related Pages: Early Poems, Rejection Slips, Epigrams and Quotes, Prose Poems, Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch, Romantic Poems by Michael R. Burch, Poems for Children by Michael R. Burch, Poems about Icarus by Michael R. Burch
Seeing that you have asked Michael, I prefer one poem and although I’m not academically qualified or schooled, I thought you could rearrange, the sky’s the limit, I guess!
My thought:
. . .and flutters and drifts on in the dark aimless flight
still it returns on incessant wings—
ruthless grey monarch of the night air. . .
I really like the last stanza because you honor the monarch of the night air, and its ruthlessness, the little grey kamikaze that it was born to be.
It’s very cosmic, I burn candles during the day and night and have my whole lifelong, I usually burn one on the window sill during twilight, you know the old way of offering symbolic shelter, and just recently a gray monarch miraculously found its way into my casa, I snapped a pic, the little cutie has what looks like “horns” and it hasn’t ruthlessly kamikazied yet!
I was totally blown away Sir Michael when I read your very gracious and kind words about my non academic poem, Teleology. I get stream of consciousness silly at times because of my silly loving muses, that get noisy and nosy and when that happens, I morph into the merry mystic mistress and think I’m writing a poem, it’s really fun.
I appreciate your kind eye and support!
Your fan, Lady Geraldine
It was a near perfect poem before you included the last verse, and it didn't particularly need another verse. But now that it's there and I've read it a few times, I'm torn too. The additional lines are good, too good to lose (yet not totally necessary). Would it be an idea to turn them into a separate poem, a companion piece to 'Fascination with Light', and call it 'A Moth Called Desire' or something like that?
A Moth Called Desire
Still it returns on incessant wings—
ruthless grey monarch of the night air.
It flutters and stares with huge primitive eyes,
and it sees beyond ruinous nights
to all the loveliness inherent there;
and it sings all the hideous despair
of its unworthiness, in a frenzy of wings;
and its desolate womb holds incurled in silk
the husks of dread kings and pale lovers.