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photo by SuhannAkula/cc0 4.0/via Wikimedia Commons
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Winter Moon
Ribbed and circular
like an aperture ring
frozen clouds encircle
the tiny moon-lens
in this winter sky.
I want to look through it.
Is Jesus floating around
on the other side
of this arched sky,
or Zeus running after maidens
(or from Hera)
or Pythagoras’ numbers,
Plato’s forms,
the milky way
making way
for the next universe?
What do I know
of these signs of winter?
The only Winter Moon
I know about Art Pepper
blows on his sax.
Next morning I awake
to snowflakes heavy and wet
a mercury gray lake,
a gelid wind.
Do I know more than I think I know?
Art Pepper, last night’s sky,
and my own wits produced
a prophesy of frigid bliss.
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Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Pinnacles of Hope (Impspired Books, 2022). His poetry has been nominated three times for both the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere.
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Listen to the 1981 recording of Art Pepper playing “Winter Moon,” with Stanley Cowell (piano); Howard Roberts (guitar); Cecil McBee (bass); Carl Burnett (drums); and Nate Rubin (violin, concertmaster). [Universal Music Group]
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