My Moon, Your Moon

My moon is high and cold today

She croons to the river

With her long silver hair spread over the water

Making waves of sentimental notes rippling and glistening

What is your moon like on the other side of the Pacific Ocean?

I come a long way to the East River

Just to get closer to you in the far east continent

On a ferry boat from Manhattan to Staten Island

I imagine being a fish swimming along the river of time

Towards you and our group glowing brightly 

Pretending that we are still young and innocent

Yet under the Cold Moon in this windy winter

We can no longer deny that we are an ocean apart

Separated by time zones and temperature

Leaving only the distant memory of joys and pains

Under your moon and my moon

We will continue to flow along in our own designated currents

And it is also time to revisit our kindred souls

Crossing the time lapse of full moon rising and setting

To eternity

S.P. Ma

December 2019

Narcissus The Great Cat

I am Narcissus The Great Cat

My planet is my private universe with my own solar system

I demand that you be my subject and my slave under my feet

You must always greet me first before your slave dog

You are required to pay me full attention once you enter our castle

You will echo my love to myself and nobody else

You will push all others to the background as shadows

Just to make me the only one under the spot light

At the center of the stage showing off my grandiose walk and trot

Expecting your enormous praise and admiration

I shall allow you to witness my beauty in some magic moments

When I appreciate my reflections in the mirror sparkling

And my dancing gracefully on the balance bar

You are to comb my hair and caress me when I need some comforting

And you will worship me as your only love and the most precious star

When I get tired of your companionship and attention

You will leave me alone but not completely alone

You are tamed to glorify me when I scratch my itch of curiosity 

I shall then watch in private the butterflies, birds and squirrels out of the window

And meow to grant you no gratitude

S.P. Ma

December 2019

Oliver and Eleanor

         

I had known Oliver since high school.  We had both attended the revered Mount Olympus School of Music. I was there on scholarship. He was there because his father could afford it. Oliver was the son of the world famous composer Apollo Greco and his wife Calli, the famous muse and grand dame of the poetry world. Also, Oliver was there because he was just plain talented. His voice poured forth like honey and his fingers vibrated like extensions of the violin strings he bowed. The faces of the teachers, students, the very tree branches that brushed against the auditorium windows, seemed to strain toward the mesmerizing melodies he produced. His music was almost not of this realm.

Outside of school he was a plain all-around good guy. He’d stand us for drinks, drive us out to his parents’ Hampton house, or play a piece on the old piano in the back of the Bacchus Bar and Grill.

Even an ordinary ditty was magic in his hands. As he played “Siren’s Sweet Song” the gal at the bar, sipping her Aphrodite Light Ambrosia, caught his eye and gave him a come hither smile. And boy, did he hurry hither, and then thither, right on back to her place. Eleanor and Oliver shared their first kiss at the beginning of that date, waiting on the downtown F subway platform. Soon he was taking her out to the Hamptons instead of us, and a big diamond appeared hanging off that 4^th finger of her left hand.

 At the wedding that followed, the giants of classical music filled Olympus Hall and provided the wedding guests with interludes to make the very gods pause to listen. The new couple, still in tux and gown, decided to commemorate their first kiss by prancing down the subway steps to the very F train platform where the smooch had occurred.  The post-party group followed in a procession. We “ooed” as their lips locked and “aahed” as they looked deep into each other’s eyes.

Just then we felt the whoosh of the F train as it approached the station from the dark tunnel. No one noticed the homeless man as he barreled down the subway steps toward the couple.

Eleanor felt a huge shove from behind her. As she fell to the tracks, she could hear the fateful thunder of the train. She looked up to the horribly distorted faces of the wedding celebrants. Among them stood one dissolute looking man with a crazed glint in his eye. He had struck and quickly slithered away with a forked tongue flicking from his smirking face.  For Eleanor, all went black as she disappeared beneath the underbelly of the subway car. Her spirit slipped down the long dusky subway tunnel and drainage ditches to the system’s underworld, known among its dead and disenfranchised as Hades South.

Life without Eleanor was impossible for Oliver. Anguish, depression, drugs, liquor all followed. Then one day, he meandered down some subway steps and soulfully played “Eleanor’s Elegy.”   Soon he had haunted all the express and local routes, playing his melancholic homage to his wife. The sad notes filtered down the tracks, through the tunnels, down to Hades South itself, where the king and queen of the underworld were so moved by the melody that they invited Oliver to enter Hades. Through one of the Styx Transit maintenance closets at the end of the PanHellenic /74 Street transfer point, he entered their world. 

Marsha H.

Dec. 9, 2019

October Trees

The sunlight pierces the leaves just so and crafts globules of quartz and glass that glint off the once verdant leaves, now scarlet, russet, and cadmium yellow. Nature’s alchemy has bleached away the chlorophyll-filled cells and allowed the secret colors underneath to reveal themselves. The leaves flutter fiercely like signal flags warning of the coming coolness. But for now the stand of trees is royal, trumpeting proudly that this is fall and they are autumn. Other surrounding trees have not been so blessed. Their leaves transmute and slay the brightness. They convert the sunlight into brown and mottled forms, which will soon dejectedly separate from their lifeblood and fling themselves to the ground, becoming one with the earth. The trees, bright or brown, young or old, will all winter over with us, in sturdy determination, remembering the delicious summer and transformational fall.

Marsha H.

Oct. 25, 2019