Moths For Moods

i) Moth is the most refined of lepidoptera.
She visits dans le soir with a debonaire flurry,
a blurr, like the blades of a helicopter, or
whirring film-reel. She mingles with a fury,
and dresses well (but won't upstage you) - often topped with a
double-feathered cap, lapels outfurrying the furry.

ii) The Moth are savage - 2500 tribes,
kitted out with knives,
who will bear down on any encampment light,
each with their own signature bruteness:
The Mother Shipton are crazed.
The Rustic Shoulder-knot are efficient.
The Mottled Pug are cold.
The Pretty Pinion are creative.
The Goat are cunning.
The Scarlet Tiger like to show off.
The Dark Sword-grass perform rituals.
The Early Thorn are messy.

iii) A glut of moths are taking over poetry
by being there before the frazzled poet
when, hunched at night, bereft of dream-conduit, he
will pounce, lean-limbed, on anything and stow it
in his poem. And as poets get more numerous,
more brooding, more prolific, subjects must
get scarcer. So as every verse grows tumerous
they'll turn to moths for more and more mots juste.

iv) After Mothra,
things will never be the same.
Mothra,
who buried Tokyo
in the shadow of her body.

v) Moths make expert spies - that palace marble
might conceal the Beautiful Brocade.
The redwood and the lichen are façade
as is the chimney and the kitchen table -
they're lookout posts for moths - the oak-hook tip,
the merveille du jour, the carbonaria
are watching us, each keen as a marsh harrier,
for a master no one knows, as we bathe and sleep.
So comb your hair or some rogue rosy footman
will infiltrate and skulk there like a leaf
for days - we intrigue them as they intrigue us,
which makes me wary. I take off my suit, then
I place your glasses on my stenograph
and search your mouth for spying garden tigers.