The Mask
Night enters through the narrow opening,
wearing a gilded mask with raven feathers
rising above two hollow eyes
silver and gold tassels hang
like trim around a bordello lamp,
ready to reveal and capture,
the one who can look in and see
the dancing horse hidden in the grassy field.
Eyes wide open, don’t look away,
As the dancing horse stares
The night covers their innocence,
Lighting strikes like a marked dagger
As the rider steps deeper and deeper
where the dancing horse bows and leaps away,
Are you inside me the mask wonders?
The rider and horse skip through the night
Teasing and touching the morning
Revealing the other side
Filled with candy canes and fairy tales
That only a few dare to take
Eyes wide shut, the night slips back
As the hollow eyes reflect
the horse and the rider inside.
Two Oceans
One side is flat
calm in the morning,
with green and blue reflections,
but dark and eerie as the full moon
casts a pathway
along the horizon.
The other side
White caps cover the cold waters
full of hills with crisp breezes
and tall mountain tops
that thrust upward
from the bottom of a time long gone.
The hot and humid
The cool and breezy
both capture and seduce you
like a trance from a magician’s spell.
The hot air strikes
Like a branding iron
burning into raw skin
But the cold is the past
And comforts
like a woolen blanket on a snowy night.
I can paint them on canvas
Write about them
Like a man and woman
Moving in sync for the first time.
Touching both,
Feeling both,
Living both.
Two oceans
On the opposite sides
Becoming one.
Bio: Karen Herzog has been a journalism/film teacher for twenty years in Miami, Florida, and is currently Media Specialist at Braddock Senior High.
Tags: "The Mask" Karen Herzog, "Two Oceans" Karen Herzog, Karen Herzog
