The Moon’s Vermilion Blooms

Triptych One

Something new for this week’s Tomes Tuesday. I think that Substack can push writers into a grind of publish, publish , publish - always on to the next thing. Now I’m all for discipline and accountability, and creators must always evolve and develop their work. However this creates the problem of a portfolio being treated as pieces rather than a whole, and our older works forgotten. With this series I am taking three of my older pieces and reweaving them into a singular train of thought.

Twilight Discipline

Taking a moment to stop and truly witness sunset giving way to nightfall can be a powerful experience. The beauty of the sun’s most powerful moment is undeniable, the sky turning scarlet: the colour of blood, discipline, and warning. Yet even as the sun triumphantly casts off its rival calming blues, dark streaks and “black tendrils” cross the sky with promises or threats of mystery and solitude, eating the colour and certainty of the daylit world. In modern life especially, it seems we are trapped in an eternal twilight, with pervasive technology, media and control systems that cast their burning glare upon every facet of our public and private actions, and yet we can almost taste an imminent collapse of those systems into a dark void. The coming night offers terror and excitement. The hours of sleep and dreaming or dancing or romance. The sun’s “chaperone eye closing” as reliable and perhaps confining structures and routines dissolve into a void.

Gleaming sun, an egg’s interior.
A safety craving the collapse.
Black tendrils touch vermilion
In thievery’s closing grasp.

Solar circle sinking, crumbling.
A chaperone’s eye closing,
Revealing seductive spaces
In the day’s slow ruin.

(From Solar Circles - taken from my book: Hypnos Hermes)

The Void’s Charm

Early night snuffs the sun’s last fire. The world becomes molasses, a shifting quagmire of shadows and dim shapes, menacing and yet carrying a sweet excitement for those who lean into its doubts and strange whisperings. Form is lost, or perhaps discarded and mind unrolls its empire.Possibility is freed from the shackles of probability and we are charmed or haunted with the visions of childhood. We project meaning and motive on the shifting shadows around us. There is much to learn in this moment of meditation as self becomes all and we confront our dreams and fears in their most powerful and raw form. While these nightly visions may never fully manifest in daily reality, they certainly have a power over how we navigate the daily world. As we stare down and reconcile with these sinister yet wise spectres, the moon’s tip climbs a distant hill and the world shifts again.

Eyes absorb the ceaseless shapes
That slip, that spill in oily pools.
Patterned waters pile their waves,
Ceaseless shapes that burst, that bloom.

Signals run the coiling corridors
To stroke, to steer the reaching threads.
Tapestries of crawling colours
Stretch across the granite bends.

(From Vision Tunnel - taken from my book: Filigree and Fire)

Lunar Perception

With the rising moon the world becomes an oasis of malleable opportunities. Neither day’s rigid unyielding forms, nor the opening night’s abstract stage. The light subtly changes and the aspects of the room can once again be perceived, however, the shadows lie oddly, the colours are muted and flowing. We’re back in the world but we can play with the soft edges, fill the gaps with our imagination. The painting on the wall lies dim, yes we see an ocean but the central shape is out of focus with unclear boundaries. A distant island? Approaching ship? Or a watchful leviathan? This moonlit world has the day’s supporting order, but here it cradles rather than confines. The void’s exciting yet threatening possibilities are tempered by that order. The dream world can brush and shade the physical without usurping it, or stealing it away from us. If we can escape the most pernicious forces ordering our lives, and face our inner worlds without losing ourselves then perhaps life itself can become a moonlight garden, anchored in the physical yet flowing in the breeze of our perceptions.

My ancient burdened legends
Revealed in Mist and vapour.
Binding histories rearranged
Ink melts upon the paper.

Billowing, beguiling moon,
Shimmer through all I’ve seen.
As you shine, as you swoon,
I reshape all that I have been.

(From Call To The Moon - taken from my book: Chantry Circuitry)

I greatly enjoyed this exercise and its been interesting to see how I’m attracted to the same themes again and again yet with different perspectives, and how they can weave together into a singular panoramic view. I fully intend to keep going with these, and I implore other writers to find their own ways of re-presenting their older pieces, nothing is obsolete on life’s unfolding journey.

Happy Tomes Tuesday
Other serial writers here on Substack are listed below. Take a look and see what stories are being weaved by these teller of tales:

Andrew Sears
Andy Futuro
Aysun G. (She/Them)
Bradley Ramsey
Caroline Barnard-Smith
Derek James Kritzberg
Elliot Kessler
FoxxeHole
Gillian Fletcher
Ian Peterson
James Kenwood
J.M. Dempsen
James Ross
Jane Dougherty
Josh Tatter
Joshua Lavender
Kathrine Elaine
Kenneth E. Harrell
Kenneth Yap
Max Windom
Michael P. Marpaung
Minnie Mayhem
Nicole Paton
Nicole Winchester
Pat Johnston
Phillip Carter
Redd Oscar
S.L. Stallings
The Black Knight
The Man Behind the Screen
Thomas Norford
Tony Chung
Victor Jimenez

Thank you for your time as always
Graeme

Subscribe to Claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks. Subscribing also gives you the chance to have YOUR WORK featured in my “McAllister’s Mates” review section.

PS If you enjoyed this, and want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering) - consider clicking the button below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.