To go to next poem...   Springwine: The Absinthe Season By Kalae S. Anthony   The glass becomes the chalice: holy wine. The fading shadows flicker spectral ghosts. Melissa, honey: bittersweet and fine, dissolves in pearly green the sug'ry host. Iridescent grail's inspiration, a glinting springwine fire on my lips, citrine blaze: the candle’s admiration: elixir, gentle, soft and slowly sipped. Behind the glassy wall, a secret door that leads you to the path of vanished dreams; a world where waxen wings will let you soar into the purple skies where diamonds gleam. Plummet, fall through velvet petalled skies, through the glittering maze of seeker's sleep. Absintheur, the elixir never lies to those who drink; to those who swim the deep. You will be lured across the rivers gold, and from the blue-cloaked boatman, payment asked: then let him taste the anise nectar’s cold, from shining spoon immersed in silver flask. You’ll come upon the blazing gates unseen and hear the siren song so soft and sweet sung by the perfumed maiden draped in Green. Continue past the gates, this is no dream. Be lashed like brave Odysseus to the mast. "Cry out! Exult in tempting lust!" she screams, "loose the flotsam and jetsam of the past!" Kaleidoscopic bursts of colored rain, the emerald water swirls with pale storms— Silence. Madness. The sacred and profane: the stillness of the night so gentle; warm. Awake. The storm of peridot subsides. Peer out in wonder through the window's jade. What part of you is lost, what part has died? Do you still hear the voice of that Green Maid? You've travelled far, my friend, your candles burned. The dreary world holds little; now you've seen that travelling sometimes means you can't return . . . when lost inside the glass of milky green.       © Copyright, Kalae S. Anthony   Click here to read Kalae’s Brief Bio.   To go to next poem...