- Poems by Sable

POEMS by Marina Lee Sable

THE MYSTIC DANCER

AND THE HOOKAH PIPE    

 

Finger cymbals, drums,

hip slide and belly roll.

Soft rustle of a jeweled veil

as it slips from her shoulder.

Obsidian hair, a flail

of lightning and bats' wings

in the moonshine of his eyes. 

 

Her skirt swirls in a phantasmagoria

of incense, liquor, and smoke rings

rising from the black-oiled well

into which he falls. 

 

She flows like mercury

through somnolent streets

in the twilight city of his mind.

With a face of meerschaum,

vermilion lips, and volcanic tides

that swirl in her eyes, she caresses

the night visions hovering

at the twisted edge of delirium. 

 

Too late, he fumbles

for the switch to extinguish her spell

as he falls into her embrace --

the morning glory of his death.

 

                               

 

 

INHABITING A DISTANT MOON

 

every night

the moon reinvents itself

and darkness

shapeshifts all around us

 

coagulating in the hollows

inchoate forms wait

beneath the crackle

of static in the air

 

they will come again tonight

 

a black geyser of creatures

flung like dark bolts

of sinking air

in the blackout of our lives

 

if you’re not hiding now

you’ll never be found again


Marina Lee Sable was born in Windsor, England. She lived in London for six years working for a newspaper in Fleet Street before moving to New York, where she works for an international law firm. She enjoys oil painting and crafts. Her poetry has recently appeared or is upcoming in Lost in the Dark, T-zero, Dark Krypt, Eclectica, Ragged Edge, Poetry Super Highway, and other magazines.

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