By The Light Of The Moon Poem by Derrick Puente

The moon stands in its own milky sea
The long ages know no other light as its own
It's reckless light waxing, wading, always retreating
To some dark pit where nightmares swallow
Each dream in silhouettes and shadows
Thirstfully I remember your hands
How often they clasped my own
You were my gentle moonlight
In the deathless sea
The richness of your fingers
The love of voiceless reason
Here upon my jaded lips I feel
Your fading fingers
The night is pregnant with your memory
My mind is as the boundless starry
Dreaming as I am prone to do of you
Arguing with sanity I live for repetition
Glowing in my inner eye, golden as the flames
Of seafaring lighthouses
Some nights you play the siren
Driving me towards the careless shallows
Others you are coy like the muse of poetry
Budding in its time, leaving when most desired
And yet still some nights you play the Pharisee
Demanding the allegiance, you yourself decline
Those nights I spout soliloquies
To your absent hearing
Then with ghostly fury you interpose your philosophy
Trying for election, failing Socrates
Yet I would have you just the same
Beaming in your wonder
In your ever altering ways
Here you are surviving in my tragic mind
Feeding on my sadness like a bitter wine.