THE TALE OF LITTLE SISTER The new moon waxing above Westminster was elegant and pure, unlike the trickster, and she, so innocent, was lured by the whispers sliding from the silver tongue of Mephisto. They flirted and fussed until the lunar eclipse, and in the earth’s shadow he briefly seduced her. The tale, and the shame, of the sun’s little sister is that the dark side is where the devil once kissed her.
WHERE STARS GO I saw some starlight in a dream reflecting in a mountain stream, invisible from there to here, only now to reappear slipping over sand and stone, sparkling shards of heaven’s bones. Swaddled in the icy brilliance gleamed a ghostly pale resilience, to ford the depths of time and space and grace this hallowed resting place. And in the spectral luminescence shone its’ silky silvery essence, the glint and glimmer of a fiery past, an eternal flame that wouldn’t last. Unveil the tale of billions of years in these ancient ember souvenirs— shooting stars, in ripe conspiracy, with comet tails, full of memories— on an unlit stage, for a final performance, to an empty house, in utter silence. Fast as light, they travelled long, to avoid the dark fate of their home, to escape the stage of dwarves and giants, the merciless mandates of math and science, and mingle in a mountain stream— to lay, and linger in a dream— and when awake, I’ll swear that I have seen where stars go when they die.
Matt Stanley was a merchant marine for more than a decade. He travelled the world working on the deck of oil tankers before returning to Baltimore to settle down. Retired now, he has reignited his love of poetry.
Grand Little Things 