Astral / Insignia
something fragile
undone
something fervent
shunned
we’re often
mistaken for others
looking for a mind
other than this
it became clearer
in the thaw of spring
it became clearer
in that quarrel inside of you
the interior of those moments
doused in forbidden aims
we planned to circumvent
the chaste flames
they lived as we did
in a language that held us
a spell of rain
made me notice the blushing sky
some simple pain
falling into the crevice of my mind
it is hard to ignore
the brook and ravine
the heath and meadow
revealing the stain between
something articulate
and ill framed
Self-Portrait
Looking past
the dissonant flowers
my body comes apart
in stilted frames
Serenading the ancients
we’re pounds of flesh
inhibiting the
warmth of discord
The sprawling pain
like seamless
impassible walls
separates each revelatory day
Finding ways out of
my skin proves difficult
the years levitate
about our inherited clay
To exist is
a brief fit of ambivalence
a dance in
subterranean tombs
About the Poet
J.L. Moultrie is a native Detroiter, poet and fiction writer who communicates his art through the written word. He fell in love with literature after encountering Fyodor Dostoyevsky, James Baldwin, Rainer Maria Rilke and many others. He considers himself a literary abstract artist of modernity.