I wade through pools of melted moonlight
to my happy place
clutched against the stars,
as night bounds through the garden with a soft shushing sound.

and I sprawl
like a constellation
in my own sliver of oblivion,
poetry book in my hands.

the pages stretching out
and sighing
like raven in flight
or the sails of a boat,

sending me coasting miles away,
on a river of stars.
until all I know is the cool of the ground,
the crumpled shush of turning pages.
the night that swathes me in it’s satin shawl.

I read poems aloud
and let them trickle down my throat.
I scrawl in my notebook
in the dark
with the words I know for the night,
but I can’t spell them.

the night shakes as if with nerves,
but I know nothing more confident
than this bowl of stars and dark.

and it throbs,
pulses,
thrums,
swells,
with a glassy echo of running water.
as a river pirouettes through the garden,
a deft brush stroke of watercolour black.
extending supple limbs between raw scents
and green plants with foreign names.
aching with silver moonlight,
and pounding with the ripples of a bird taken flight,
gently unfurling.

it would be so easy
to think
that the pallid pendulum of moon swinging on the horizon
follows me-
is all mine.

and stars prick at the skin of the sky
light welling up like blood in its wake.
glowing like a thousand fireflies.
ghostly flashes like fairy lights
colour senseless dark.
stars clutching for purchase
on a satin smooth swirl of night.

my skin tingles with raw night scents;
frost,
soil,
grass,
dew.
and chill air stains it
blushing red.

clouds like ghostly faces
wide eyed and yawning.
Drape languidly over the bumps
and hills of the sky.
fingerprints of delicate rose,
a scar left by the day,
swirl like pale ink clouds in water,
crease the hushed folds of night,
coolly indifferent to the tangled coils of tarmac
rumbling with too many cars below.

as a cool wind greets the air,
sheltering me like a thousand gentle hands
I glow with their presence
though my legs prick with cold.

bird hoots spread
like a rumour
taking root until the night shivers
with pessimistic warbles
and porcelain-delicate clinks.
sounds blending together into a twisted braid;
velvety bird cries,
whispering trees shushing each other,
soft music stretching languidly from the headphones
that tangle in a wreath around my neck,
sounds like sobbing.

skeletal trees scrape the sky,
knotted like a ribcage,
clasping together in a safety net
should a star fall.
but I’m the only one falling,
falling in love with the night

as the seconds melt into minutes;
the minutes evolve into hours;
I long for more lives
To live out here under the stars

the nebula will be my blanket;
the moon my nightlight;
the stars my ceiling
and the trees my walls.

my thoughts are granted graceful clarity,
like I’ve found a map with which to travel
through the mazes in my head.

but all the sadness I clasp,
within my eyes,
in the blue grey mist,
bleeds out and settles as dew on the grass.

all the mourning and confusion,
doesn’t fit in my head,
so I release into the stars
where it fits perfectly.