Because Moths Aren’t Butterflies

In the shower, a moth
appears, an attention-
craving teenager, flying
about into cascading
water and back out again, whacking
itself against the surgical-
white-tiled wall,

each time. Plummets.
Shower curtain shift:
a sea frozen plastic-white;
tile-groove stare,
shower head hole-counting,
blunted-thistle-bright sponge massage:
crop circle lather.

Nozzle twist,
post-wash drip,
curtain call,
lifeless flapping,
helicopter seed wings near my feet,
mustard-slapped,
dirtied: dust-brown,
maggot-stumped body,
pipe cleaner legs,

covered in shampoo foamed fur.
You’re gonna have to get out of there, buddy I said,
left the shower,
left it to die.
Terry cloth rubdown-caress:
air-soft skin,
now, sweeping brush bristle-
thick torment:
screech-scraped
flesh, gum disease-red.

I replay its death,
plughole now my mouth:
just before it is washed
down my windpipe-drain,
a kaleidoscope of bright
colours, like brilliance,
flashes
across its outdated
wallpaper-patterned wings,
my lungs fill:

swimming pools into waterlogged graves;
light bulbs instead of sunlight.

 

 

 

“Life is a Spark”

“Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.” ― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

A five-year-old boy is bursting with excitement before a sparkler is lit
and filled with disappointment when it goes out,
for a moment,
before discarding it
without hesitation
when handed a new one.
Does he remember the colourful shapes he made the first time?
Shapes unseen, unheard of before;
when his hand flowed freely,
sparkler a wand.
Or, are these lost on replacement
to the black void of the night sky?
Does he, with the next one, choose to write his name instead?
Sparkler a branding iron;
firework his title:
because beyond noise, light and smoke,
he knows
it’s something
he’ll always be remembered for.

 

 

—Published 9th of April 2019

 

About David Hanlon