Smuggler's Moon

By Dillinger Steele

This poetry book brings an encyclopedia of rich experiences and a lifetime of character studies to the written page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684707720

Book preview

Sailor%20Photo.JPG

Prologue

I walk my solitude in long leaps

of afternoon sunlight, no shadow

holds me close. I dive headlong

into lilac, into the sweet traffic

of different blooms. In the center of earth,

I stop, gazing at the dawn, and breathe.

Yet still I am in the neighborhood; look,

and tell me what madman the dawn informs

on, what fool, what ninny of time draws back?

Who knows what will happen?

None knows.

Why? Nothing. And on down,

far as a stone.

I talk backward like the out-tide fills, yet

still, I am a stone’s throw from laughter.

Eternity?

Preposterous.

Eternity?

Presumptuous.

Eternity?

Return to preposterity.

Now, far before

the beginning, the world

was a large and precious stone, apples

gold, and edible, were falling

thousandfold from the beggars’ windows

of wealthy cities. And we

were undreamt of, like lights

behind drawn shades, like dreams

in ancient laundry rooms.

Now, where before the sunlight leaped,

no shadow has appeared and yet

the warmth still clings to these

cracked old sidewalks.

Dive headlong into the sweet lilac,

not the purple

but those blue ones that

darken by night like the sea above us.

Flight

I never saw the kind earth open far below me

in the city of those angels where I dared to fly alone.

I gazed beyond the miles

of coiled ribbon where the highways wound

machines grinding fit to