Astronomy of Pathos

troubled by a harvest moon
made gravid with ichorous spatter
brain matter heaped in neat pleasing elevations
features arranged in a snarky implacable grin
rendered in greyscale
even before this I'd felt its gaze
the weight of photons striking my face
a fleeting barrage of cosmic hail
towed at high tide from my slumber
now could not bear the sight
blurred as it was through eyes near blind with weeping
drew the blinds against insinuation between the slats
bereft for my demon lover
trapped inside his airless engineer's capsule
an empty oyster shell shot glass left to toast
the precise mythos of indelible scars he'd drafted

with thematic apperception, the other
crossed the Styx, eager, hastening to the caverns
foundered on dream-shoals, shipped by whiskey breakers and cheap wine
a toll paid in more than coin, I wonder
if pale sapphires, rose quartz, amethyst, emeralds and citrine
a necklace of fingerprints around my neck
can still be seen under black-light memory
if it was enough to pay the fare
utterly inimical to joy
abandoned like a backpack on the opposite bank
soaked Eurydice wanders, her way lost, in those dark corridors
infatuated with her own suffering
until the mass of all his traumas collapsed inward
sucking all the air from the room
enlarging the void in his soul
she awaits a rescue that never comes

I've stowed my telescope
now prefer my stargazing from the driveway
under a darkness more than night
punctuated in brief sharp notes by winking distant fires
to usher these gathered dots into their coherent constellations
yet the sun rises over charred rubble
green shoots snake upward through irrelevant concrete ash
and beetles gird up shining chitin armour, always the first to return
all this promise rooted in relentless gravity
still our heads turn reaching toward the light

- kmf (RedSonja)

Author's Note: This may read less obscure recognising my attempt to make sensible some painful history - my 1st husband's suicide, the 2nd's descent into madness, with a little murder (almost) and co-dependence thrown in for good measure - speaking in my milk-tongue (metaphor) and poking the wound, insisting on a true voice. May not have hit it yet, metaphors being such slippery little bastards.