The Moon Diver
Have you heard of the Moon Diver,
A foul mischievous imp,
Who puts lines on ladies’ faces
And gives healthy fellows a limp?
He alters us while we’re sleeping
Or in a restless swoon
By diving straight into our dreams
From his perch on the swaying moon.
So, when the moon glows overhead
Fasten the windows tight
And watch the sky with wary eye
For this naughty fairy in flight.
Don’t look for him too near the moon,
You cannot see him there,
For his skin is polished onyx,
And dragonfly wings form his hair.
No, it’s best to find him slinking
From the luminous sun
When pure safe light imbues the world
And nightmarish visions are done.
He spends his days in ponds and streams,
Inky watery nooks,
Performing nasty turtle tricks,
Tangling lines and straightening hooks,
Or sliding through unkempt gardens
Causing dried leaves to shake
And hiss as if they’re being stirred
By scales of a venomous snake.
Where any mischief may be done,
He slithers out of sight,
Buts waits all day to do his worst
Under cover of looming night.
At dusk, he slinks up ivied trees,
As fledglings flee their nest.
He sits among the topmost limbs
And eagerly watches the west.
When no small sliver of the sun
Splinters the western skies,
He leaps up past the canine star,
Pulls its ears and punches its eyes.
He twists the ring in the bull’s nose,
Blaming poor Orion,
Plucks the hairs of both the bears,
Riding the back of the lion.
He hides behind the moon’s dark side,
Trailing it through the stars,
Stealing the three rings of Saturn
And plucking the cherry of Mars.
Then, he squats with trembling haunches
On a pale lunar beam
Like an incubus sits on its victim
Waiting for a crippling dream.
When he hears unsettled moaning,
Moon Diver stands to leap
And falls dart-like through the black night
Into your delusional sleep.
I think that probably the first thing that my blog readers will want to know is how did I get a picture of the Moon Diver. Well, I will tell you. I was outside getting Luna in from her pen one night last summer when I heard the deep, bass hooting of an owl very close by. I followed the sound until I had located the owl in a dead tree across the road from the house. It was sitting perched on the top limb of that tree with the moon behind it. A perfect shot of a perfect silhouette of an owl! This was going to be awesome! I took my phone quietly from my pocket, raised it to take the picture, zoomed in just right, and pushed the button. Somehow in a split second that I was not looking, the owl had flown away, so all I had was a picture of the full moon behind a dead tree limb. When I zoomed in on the limb though, I could see that the light of the moon had cut the limb into pieces, and one of the pieces just happened to be the Moon Diver. I had caught him at last, the treacherous little fella who had plagued so many of my nights.
Now, why did it take me so long to write the poem? I couldn't get it right. I have actually written five or six versions of this poem over the last six months or so--none of which I have kept besides the last. The first focused on Moon Diver's days in water with fisherman seeing him. I didn't like that. Then, I put him in flower beds and gardens during the day, and I didn't like that. I took him out of the day entirely and only had him playing amongst the planets and constellations. That didn't work at all. I ended up using extremely abbreviated versions of the three and added all the parts about him entering a person's head while the person dreams. That had never been a part of the versions I had written earlier.
To maintain this poem's musical and rhythmic sound, the A, C, and D lines of each verse are iambic tetrameter. There are four "feet" of unaccented/accented syllables in these lines with, of course, variations. Each B line is a trimeter. That is three feet per line. Verse fourteen has a longer line simply because I really loved the sound of "Like an incubus sits on its victim." Why change the meter if it sounds so good?
I have placed a new comment box on the blog page. I did not know that an app could be downloaded into my blog for a comment box, but I accidentally stumbled upon it. I don't know how it works because nobody has commented in it yet. You can be the first. Please drop me a note. The new box is on the upper left side of the blog. As always, most of all, simply ENJOY!
* At the excellent advice of my friend, fellow blogger, and fellow poet, Patrick Gillespie, I made some word and verse adjustments to the poem on February 2, 2023.