Daniel Edward Moore
Calendar Boy
It's not easy being Calendar Boy
strung out on waiting for numbers to change
men into monsters &monsters to men
the alchemy found when confessions are heard
by those who gather to grieve their body's
sad appointments with lies
supposedly these days like us
crushed by the simple mention of night
by midnight's jazzing arrhythmia pulse
beat us down to morning's last breaths
where supposedly the world ended exactly as it should
arriving on time staying late talking to Calendar Boy
Ballad for Bathsheba
"I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart;
he will do everything I want him to do." Acts 13:22
At the end of the out breath,
the end of the world.
They found your name missing your body,
missing it like an unwritten psalm
would find you dreaming of singing,
find you under his fingernails
as he plucked your blood
with his murderous harp,
at the end of his out breath,
the end of your world.
For the Sake of New Worlds Undiscovered
When the bent, rusty, flesh bound nail,
twice pounded, twice pulled, from a driftwood corpse
took refuge in my foot's calloused flotilla
grounding became a diabolical thought.
Making me Captain of one steel soul,
setting our course on the Tetanus Sea,
no dreamer wakes to find fever as friend,
adrift on the surf of electrolytes lost.
Red, bold, and wider each minute
was the map being drawn on the side of my leg.
Disease and love came with directions,
with breath being wind, blood being rain,
a sustainable guide in any translation,
as long as hope for a cure are abandoned
for sake of new worlds, undiscovered.
Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems have been found at Spoon River Poetry Review, Rattle, Columbia Journal, Western Humanities Review, and others.
His poems are forthcoming in The Museum of AmericanaGlass Mountain Magazine, The McKinley Review, Into the Void Magazine, Isthmus Review, Magnolia Review, The Inflectionist Review, New Limestone Review, Duende Literary Journal, AJI Magazine, West Trade Review, and Military Experience and the Arts.
His books, "This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys, and Barbarians Anthology" and "Confessions of a Pentecostal Buddhist," can be found on Amazon. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Visit Daniel at DanielEdwardMoore.com.