The Storm King
is taking no gambles
at the Sky Lounge tonight.
He's a seasoned showman.
He's hired the best.
This dame gets top billing.
She's worth it.
His headliner tonight,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
is
The Moon.
Her evocative form
never fails to lull his critics;
She'll give them something
positive
to opine about
in the middle of his
bohemian cold snap.
She's a crowd-pleaser,
and This crowd?
Needs pleasing.
He can
taste their
teased-by-false-spring
discontent,
like too much cologne,
on the brisk night air.
His Second-Winter Act
needs
Luna's Midnight Mania.
There's nothing like
her coolbright curves
to bring their
"NotAgain" grumbling
to a swift, silent
halt.
It's time.
He can feel it in his empty soul.
Smiling a bone-chilling smile,
he combs back rainslicked hair,
flicking an icy finger at the lights
and sits back to watch his audience
watch the show.
As the night theater darkens,
the music of the Cosmos
(the house band most nights)
gently swells.
Thunder
rolls out a riff on his toms
sending a low rumble through time and space.
It's like the Heavens
are holding their breath
as
The World goes quiet
with anticipation.
Parting the curtain of clouds,
needing no spotlight,
awash in her own brilliance,
She
sashays,
swathed in shimmering satin,
across the star-bright floor,
whispersinging songs of Love and Longing.
She's the brightest light in the firmament
and she's doing it again;
Effortlessly enchanting everyone in sight.
Seasonally disaffected patrons,
now moon-drunk and sloppy,
are bathing in her suggestiveness;
lapping up Illusions
like they can't get enough of 'em.
As long as She's on stage,
Hope, and Warmth, Sex and Summer
couldbe just around the corner.
She's filling wishful heads
with breath-catching memories --
short skirts and skin-tight t's,
hot whispers on silent nights,
steamed windshields,
young flesh coupling on picnic blankets.
She's spoon-feeding them
the arch and tangle dreams
of youth unforgotten
with each and every silver note.
Soaking them in yen and yearning,
she's raising the room to a fevered pitch;
the underlying tension
so thick
that it is almosthard
to breathe.
Bolder patrons make their way
to the washrooms
in subtly groping pairs,
looking for urgentsweaty
release
in darkened corners;
against graffiti-ed stall doors.
She is caressing them all
with Moonsong;
Each gesture of her pale white hands
like a touch on their winter-hungry skin.
Wrapped in night lyrics,
sacred and profane,
they hang on her every growling hum,
clamoring for more
of her amnesia-inducing,
aphrodisiac Luna-cy.
The Storm King,
grinning as if canary feathers were peeking
out of his feral mouth,
can feel his plan working.
He's no fool.
He's played this right.
With a quick glance
to the business side of the house,
he notes that
Old Man Winter
has slipped behind the bar again,
unnoticed,
during her set.
The old bastard is smugly serving up
frost-y glasses,
while tapping his icy toes.
He's a dirty old man,
breathing his chilly breath
down each soft neck,
hoping to see
evening clad nipples
harden with his approach.
The cold son-of-a-bitch
just
loves that.
Tonight though,
No one is paying Him much attention.
They're too busy basking in the unexpected
February Glory of The Moon;
reveling in the mythological heat
of her reflected beauty;
re-living the barely dormant
passions
of the almostspring
with which
they'd been so recently
teased.
That's ok.
Winter can wait.
He's got time.
Bright Lady,
Sing your Full Moon songs
from the Storm King's stage tonight.
He's got your contract
until the end of March.
Lull-a-By us
into voluptuous forgetfulness
before the cold rains return,
and the Storm King reminds us
that he's in Old Man Winter's employ
until the Vernal Equinox
releases him to Spring's
gentler care.
© Tanya Anguita
