Daniel Thomas Moran

 

 

(USA)

 

 

 

Elegy for Homo sapiens

 

Like the

warships

they

worshipped,

They fell

prey to the

squalls.

 

Lifted

banners

on

borders,

Guards on

garrison

walls.

 

Like their

gods and

their

gardens,

They were

destined to

wilt.

 

They could

never

be

perfect,

As the

weapons they

built.

 

 

2016

 

 

 

After Keats Ode to a Nightingale

 

Prepare for me the feast divine,

a table so resplendent.

A place to sip the timeless wine,

from the vineyards of contentment.

 

I dread not nightfall’s mystery,

from this vantage in the twilight.

As did I then a youthful me,

bathed in morning’s dew light.

 

Mine ear is cocked in deference,

to the far winds beckoning.

To let my eternity commence,

from this faithless mortal reckoning.

 

Oh, Nightingale at my garden’s gate,

serenading sweet the fractured hours.

Your strains do cause my soul elate,

making the rumbling darkness cower.

 

Dim Forever, be this my final thought?

Mine ears filled with this perfection?

Is this raspy growl what time has wrought?

Myself the furrowed face in this reflection?

 

Oh Age, cruel as the driver’s whip,

the stinging winter lies cross my back.

The fire of life falling from my grasp,

my pastel sunrise must fade to black.

 

Shadow, spare me not your insistence,

nor death, the brine in this falling tear.

My heart will cease without resistance,

sure my own day of darkness nears.

 

With this toiling my gnarly fingers ache,

expression eludes me like a virgin.

Now my face burns with each icy flake,

of these snows silent and urgent.

 

Oh, mock me no more you wistful youth,

cast no fretful eye upon me,

Take heed all, truths senescence speaks,

words spoken too soon for thee.

 

 

 

Paris Revisité

Douzième Anniversaire de Mariage

 

We arrived back,

twelve years to

the very day,

descending again

from the French

dark while Paris,

was still soft in sleep.

The webs of

streetlamps that defined

her luminous essence,

cast black apparitions on

the faces of still houses.

 

We set down our feet

upon her marbled floor,

With no one to notice

but the man from

West Africa, draped

like an ancient king,

in greens and gold,

who offered his card.

 

And we sat for our

brief time this time.

And we shared time

as we had then.

And we reflected how,

In these moments

and many others since,

Our life had become

pan chocolate.

The delicate bread

of our living, cradling

a deep sweetness.

 

 

2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________

 

BIO

 

Daniel Thomas Moran, born in New York City in 1957, is the author of nine collections of poetry. His ninth collection, A Shed for Wood, was published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland in 2014. His prior collection, Looking for the Uncertain Past, was published by Poetry Salzburg at the University of Salzburg in 2006. He earned a B.S. in Biology from Stony Brook University (1979) and a Doctorate in Dental Surgery from Howard University (1983). In 2005, he was appointed Poet Laureate by The Legislature of Suffolk County, New York. His collected papers are being archived by The Department of Special Collections at Stony Brook University. He is a retired Clinical Assistant Professor at Boston University’s School of Dental Medicine, where he delivered the Commencement Address in 2011 and received the ADSA Outstanding Faculty Award. He and his wife Karen live in Webster, New Hampshire.