Five Poems
by Daniel Edward Moore
The Sky’s Prayer
Our ozone who art in heaven
who graced the world’s spinning skull
like a helmet made for warriors,
now a veil of smokey lace
in the yellow teeth of progress,
hallowed be thy name.
Your fire falls to earth
as we bring ours to heaven.
Consumed by the carbs of more & better,
we gave you our daily bread
baked in delusion’s ovens.
Forgive the flames of greed that turned
clouds to ashen storms, as we cannot
forgive ourselves for making earth a memory.
Deliver us from evil
or the fantasy at least.
You, the crown that fit us all,
worn until we lost it,
making clouds of ocean steam
the power and the glory.
*Originally published by Notre Dame Review
Wilderness Weary
If there’s one thing I’m not
it’s wilderness weary.
Give me Fir trees in heels
seducing the stars
with eagle eyeliner
smeared across heaven.
Give me black muddy runways
of perilous fields
where Trumpeter swans
blow horns for coyotes.
Earth is the biggest Queen
I know, all stubble & lipstick,
ripped nylons
and sorrow.
*Originally published by Hamilton Stone Review
Estimated Time of Repair
With no signs of normal returning,
only computer screens on fire, you
never wore the smoke of a hero’s cologne,
called late night rescue or dragged through a window.
Not all flames submit to technology’s promiscuous
choice of plugs. For some, a hole is just a hole,
but not to the shovel’s rusty blade opening the ground
like a lover’s tongue to bury what may or may not bloom.
That tiny light at the bottom of the screen flickering for its mother,
knows letters on the keyboard will soon be ash, and Daddy’s not coming home.
*Originally published by Panoply Magazine
To Know Utterly What You’ll Never Be
What mortality lacks in multiple choice
she makes up for in torrential tears
anointing hands on the cradle’s bars
then flowing to graves on a hill,
tucked between trees
like a dead preacher’s shirt.
If harm is all the evidence needed
to prove I took the test,
maybe choices are rotten wood
dressing trees from the chimney with ash
and Spring is when the world’s dark womb
pushes as hard as it can.
Our ears will be blessed
with screaming things
and that look in her eye,
the one about leaves
forgetting how to stay.
You know what that means.
*Originally published by Southern Humanities Review
Dear Neo-Pastoral
When beauty, my inner pageant queen
walked the runway of infected veins
with an ancient book on her head, sad
for how knowledge, a distraction accessory,
made nothing balanced or better, someone
had to tell her. Worshipping flowers is hard,
finding comfort in colors with paper thin lives
shredded by the wind’s cold hands will not be
the first time a woman’s glory cannot not save a man.
There’s a homicidal hornet coming for you
but first it will
sting something pretty.
*Originally published by Wilderness House Literary Review
BIO: Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His work is forthcoming in Xavier Review, The Meadow Journal, Panoply Magazine, The Stillwater Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Sagebrush Review, Gyroscope Review and River and South Review. His book, “Waxing the Dents,” is from Brick Road Poetry Press.