Tales & Moonstruck

by Romain P. A. Delpeuch (May 2022)

Study of Love, Raoul Dufy

Tales

Delirious trials at reaching stars
(or mortals, closer to the eye)
narrate the stories from our scars:
theoretic failures from on high.

(Let’s listen to accordion players,
or to some story-tellers, folk-
singers, those roaming lore-purveyors,
enchanters soon to bear the yoke.)

You gave me hope when none was there;
or was it ire and jealousy?
Unanchored dreams in which I dare
reach out for you through fantasy?

Salvation may desert this world;
efficient grace might make us saints.
Let’s be together bound and hurled
far, far away as goodness faints.

Moonstruck

“And there you were, and you became my all,
dwarfing the host of heaven—even God
could not beside you stand, idol unshod,
treading on pine-straw and dried leaves that fall
abandoned on your way… You rose so tall!
Vying for light, you snatched it. Though I plod
abased, in dust, and scrawling verses flawed,
oblivious of my roots and of the gall
soaking my heart in bitter thoughts, I dream
oblique and wondrous dreams in which you greet
me as your friend of yore. We never met.
Will you, one day, set eyes on me? Your gleam,
glowing the hearts who for your sight compete,
blinded my reason. Nothing to regret.”

His mind untethered wandered, luring him astray.
Amidst delusions, though, his guide showed him a way.

Table of Contents

Romain P. A. Delpeuch is the author of Hypnagogia (Terror House Press, TBA). His poetry and short fiction appear in New English Review, Terror House Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Apocalypse Confidential, Ekstasis, D.F.L. Lit, JOURN-E (vol. 1, no. 2), Atop The Cliffs and The Decadent Review.