L’Heure Bleu by Stephen Mead

This time has no stars, not yet,

only fog lights farther out, just on the lip,

there where the horizon line sits

as if in a berth.

Foam from that distance is simply a path

of steps on water

bubbling up so fantastically

closer to the poop deck.

What a canopy of rich ink

spilled from a milk bottle above this froth.

Over its stretch, like monarchs, sail doves,

each an olive branch messenger

we ourselves set free.

Their shadows glint as Rorschach’s near dusk.

What land of hands will balance their news?

The Lagan loughs of emerald

can scarcely be fathomed in this density.

Still, in Falconer poses, we put our arms out

above this wake and are spray-kissed by its veil.

Watching such sameness, ever-changing,

gray over green, we are the brides,

the blue nuns, whose mission the sea takes

into the waves of amnesia for what peace

was stopped.

---

Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, The Chroma Museum