Consolation Prize

UNCLE EDWARD’S MOON MACHINE

One grey, grey growly day I crawled into the loft

slammed shut the trap and grouched into a ball

beneath the old brown blanket’s hoary mustiness.

My grump well snuffed,I switched the moonlight on

And turned the handle slowly, slowly,

Faster,faster,till the bright white moon

Swelled up and shrivelled, swelled and shrank

a hundred years at a time at such a speed

her hair trailed blue and black through drifting clouds

and oceans rose and fell and pranced and swayed

till all the earth took up the pulse with merriment

and I the laughing dancing heart of it!

I stopped her at the full.

And let her breathless brilliance flood

Distant shores where rocks and whale bones

Cast unearthly shadows, silver ripples

Trooping sleepily to dream on sand.

And long time to let her beams pierce

Icicles on trees to crystalline intensity.

Then with the handle going back and forth

Her puckish face dodged this way that

among tall medieval chimneys

overlooking cobbled squares of revelry.

And best of all I found the harvest moon,

the big round rosy moon in mist,

her arms embracing autumn’s basket

on her pregnant paunch, and turned the handle till

she burst,ah burst! Across November’s sky

and left a thousand scattered falling stars.

On such a day I quit the loft,

Closed down the hatch and combed my hair,

and all my boredom of before was vibrancy!

David C Ellis

Cumbria