Dark Velvet

DARK VELVET

We are all in the gutter,
but some of us are looking at stars.
                               — Oscar Wilde

I

Some memories shine like living precious stones
Now scattered on the dark velvet here before me:
    Rubies, red with liquid passion;
    Opals, playful, transparent, pure;
    One rose quartz, heart-shaped and glowing;
    Sapphires, azure like some pensive gaze;
    Diamonds, strangely lucid, serene
And emerging all too briefly
From universes present,
Yet hidden . . .

II

Such are the gems I remember from myth long ago
Before they were scattered across the dark firmament:
    Glimmering now like distant fires;
    Sparkling in the vastnesses of space;
    Beaming from the farthest galaxies;
    Quietly gazing down through time;
    Slowly orbiting inside my brain
And steadily gleaming like on
Deep dark velvet—
Remote, alive . . .

Published in The Neovictorian/Cochlea, 2004.

© 1996 Freddy Niagara Fonseca

Author of This Enduring Gift - A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry, 2010

http://www.thisenduringgift.com