JB's Birthday

When I was very small and still trusting
Your hand was all-encompassing and contained mine.
You made infinity a warm blanket
And night a safe place to hide.
Your hand swept the night sky, cleaned it.
You named the stars as you named your daughters.
And now that I am grown, and you are gone,
My sisters in the sky still come each night,
And name you.

Shooting star

Last night you fell from my firmament.
Krank und kaputt, you took a tumble.
I tried for silent months to hold you.
I stuck you up with force of will.
When that packed in I tried sellotape.
Superglue failed and so did all
The spiritual trappings and inner growth.
Pardon, forgiveness, understanding,
Yoga, rebirthing, meditation,
All failed utterly as cosmic glue.
You fell my dear, you fell directly
Through the handle of Orsa Maggiore
Resting on the horizon. That too failed
To hold your inconsistency.
Lubrified by your oiliness
You greased your way down through your own
Personal flipper and entered the zone
Marked “loser”. Just one momentary scoot
Of surprising yellow (sulphur my dear?)
Marked your definitive passing for good.
Your light has gone out, you’ve pressed disconnect,
You’ve taken the ultimate nosedive and I
Have no way of knowing if your brief performance,
Your spectacular, short and distinctly downward
Journey proceeds or if you’ll just
Disintegrate for lack of substance.
You taste so good, but melt in the mouth.
No nutritional value ever hit my cells.
Could it be you were never a star?
A meteor maybe? Spatial dust?
Little or nothing. Wasn't it just.

TENDER IS NOT THE NIGHT

Tender is not the night. Indifferent rather.
What right have the stars to signify and make decree?
Never, not once, has a star warmed my face,
Lit my path or resolved my plight, my plea.
Not once has a star led seed to birth, to light,
Whenever did strife, did life, cause a star to weep?
Did ever my joy find and keep a sibling twinkle?
Don’t look for my soul on the unprimed canvas of night.
Cold and predictable, distant, elsewhere, other.
Autistic, insentient. No message, no portent, no meaning.
Overrated by poets and children and pedlars of dreams,
To them we are nothing, dust for an instant then gone.
Leave the stars to the night, turn your back on the sky.
With or without them we’re born, we live and we die