The Red Moon’s Banquet: A Dance of Life and Death

Bones and ribs—muscles taut beneath the hunchback's veil,

The madman's tarot flickers on a ceramic urn,

White and blue Mediterranean swirls conspire,

Lemons nestle in shadows, their fragrance a bitter burn.

Kiwi's tart whisper, mango's languid sigh,

Strawberries blush beneath nectarine's coy gaze,

Raspberries pirouette with grapes in twilight's compote —

A compendium of life's aromatic maze.

Ghostly witches brood beneath the red moon's leer,

The sky's voice muffled, tangled in torn white curtains,

Violet drapes billow like a teapot's steaming breath —

While winds at seven fan "the pride of fools' repenting".

Butterflies—angels dipped in pastel powder —

Seahorses pink and powder-soft, drift through a dream,

Dragons cradle secrets in marsupial folds,

A fragile veil of hues masks this mortal scheme.

Fools with gaping mouths and hearts petrified parade,

Their furrowed brows a plague of scornful speech,

Tornadoes of tick impressions, parasites of thought,

Leeching deep the intellect's fragile reach.

The visionless man, swathed in green and orange spite,

Brazen insolence of impertinent pride,

Blinded by the petty envy's dull inferno,

"Gnashing teeth" on hearts frozen and minds tied.

A sound flaps — absurd, proud, and vain,

While shadows stage life's relentless farce,

Breath and silence duel in whispered arcana,

"Underneath the red moon's cold, unyielding glance".

So spins the world, in bitter jest and cruel cheer,

Between white curtains and violet drapes' sway,

Life's exotic juice — kiwi, mango, berry —

A dance of flesh and bone, heralding death's final day.

I am the hermit of this ephemeral sphere,

The wind at 33, the voice of skies unclear,

The priestess of the nightingale in the scarlet lunar glow —

The watcher where the veils of life and death flow.

I cherish this soul — a vessel steeped in vitreous light,

Crystalline, yes — but formed beneath pressure unsaid,

A shell-heart, spiraled in epistemic lace,

"Dwelling where silence engraves its sonnets on breath".

I kneel daily — worship, witness —

Before this axis of eros, philia, agape,

Where Being exhales itself into translucent grace:

A time-capsule sealed in the mind's library.

Here, love—loved and loving—self—engenders,

Performs its liturgy beyond the death-tide's reach,

And mystery, pastel-sky, seeps through the firmament

While capricious nocturnes bleed across a lucid heaven.

Do you feel it?

The idiotic tear, unclaimed by reason,

The tremor of a question not yet born in speech:

Will you taste it — this pot, mythos, this echoing trace,

"Where touch becomes seeing, and time forgets its name"?

Author: N.H., 

June 20, 2025

Notes:

1. The quote "Where touch becomes seeing, and time forgets its name" is inspired by the novel "Touch" by Olaf Olafsson. The novel explores the relationship between an Icelandic man and a Japanese woman, delving into themes of memory, loss, and the nature of time. Yet, in the poem "The Red Moon's Banquet: A Dance of Life and Death", it has a different meaning — mystical, transcendental.
2. The phrase "dwelling where silence engraves its sonnets on breath" is inspired by Walt Whitman, from his poem "Song of Myself". It suggests a place of deep quietude where even the most subtle sounds (like a breath) are imbued with significance, like the writing of a sonnet, a form traditionally associated with intense emotion and meaning.
3. The idea of "the pride of fools' repenting" is inspired by Proverbs 11:29.

Categories: philosophy, psychology, theology, sociology, politics, culture, education

Genre: Interdisciplinary poems

Reading Level: University