Of moon-eating suns and other things…

~ Rajani Radhakrishnan

toothless morning
like a worn cliché
chews the dark end of the sky

**
I woke seven times
and saw seven dawns
all empty of light –
how much darkness does it take
to hide a morning?

**
somewhere

in this amorphous dawn
is a moon-eating sun

I hold the darkness close
I pretend it is you
It pretends I am the light

**

Inspired by Rosemary’s Variations on a Theme to present a thought (of sorts) as a haiku, tanka and cherita. Which one works?

Sharing this with Poets and storytellers United – As a newbie storyteller, I can’t bring my flash fiction there because of the word limit, but if you are of a mind, do check it out here  and here and let me know what you think.

37 thoughts on “Of moon-eating suns and other things…”

  2. I pictured the cliché “it’s darkest before the dawn” when I read this:
    “I hold the darkness close
    I pretend it is you
    It pretends I am the light”
    But there is so much sadness that the light and the dark cannot exist at the same time. All the while trying to hold the darkness close. Will the dark or the light prevail or somehow coexist?
    Just thoughts running through my head right now. Thank you for sparking them, Rajani

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  4. I love where you took the cliché theme, Rajani, especially toothless morning chewing the dark end of the sky and ‘how much darkness does it take / to hide a morning?’ I agree about the word magic and the wonderful way you’ve played with form.

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  6. I read them as one long poem, and I think it would hurt the overall if any piece of it is missing. try reading it without one of the parts. Maybe the first could go, but the idea of “toothless” informs the other two. I ended up asking what could be “toothless”? and let that reflect on the pretend. If only pretense could last a lifetime. Would it then be toothless? Can we live in fiction?

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    1. I suppose in a way we do live in fiction… but I love how you read it… I think the word occurred to me in connection with chew, as in a morning that cannot end a night, the cliche of course being there will always be light somewhere at the end. But such a pretense of morning can last a lifetime… some do live in denial !!! Thanks Susan, am learning about my own poem from you! Super!

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  12. I like them all, but I love the cherita. At first, I thought that it was because I’m biased (I love the form), but I don’t think that’s it exactly–I like it more because it feels like a complete story dancing with a poem. There first and second versions are heartfelt, but the last one–the cherita–is the heart of the speaker exposed.

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