Softness Of The Late Night Mind...

Softness Of The Late Night Mind... 

I've tried thousands of words to capture what this is.

Still these gentle fuzzy hours float like soap bubbles in a fading-to-indigo twilight sky,

Hiding behind stars and planets.

I wonder if the family Muse has dinner with my ghosts, laughing at my feeble attempts to understand emotional physics.

Is there an infinity of universes contained in a drying teardrop?

Are all the nebulae in the visible universe merely the echoes of exploded ancient dreams? What glorious ghosts they are!

If I should dream of flying through the end of everything, I want to see it all.

Softness and the blessed stillness of critical focus are gifts, the ones Prometheus was really paying for.

Paint the night with ideas; brush it softly with poetry, for the night is quiet and soft, rampant with hope and dreams. 

Sleep is a starship, deep in the indigo sky.

AquarianM

By:  Daniel A. Stafford

© 02/27/2026

Softness of the Late-Night Mind

Real Conversations...

So often I get on here, 

We're all just "spouting," 

And I wonder if,

There is some magical BlueSky trick,

To actually having real conversations. 

Not that I have a lot of time, 

But it would be interesting & nice,

Once in a weekend.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 07/19/2025

Riding The Zero Hour...

Riding The Zero Hour...

Of the softness of late clocks,

A quiet of sleep's rose-petal edge,

A universe blossoms,

Living it's all between last blink and alarm,

Dreaming of slowing time,

Quantum-entanglement of hush and infinite possibilities.

AquarianM

© 01/07/2025 by Daniel A. Stafford 

Warped...

Warped...

Time and space and mind,

Swirled across the mists of eternity I wander,

Looking for the wisdom of the ages,

Breathing in the tides of infinity,

I look out to the horizon and see things as they are now,

Yet when I look up or down or off into space,

As they could be should be would be,

If there were any heart in the logic,

Reality wouldn't be so...warped.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 03/31/2010

The Poet's Mechanical Fantasy...(Free .PDF E-Book)

Cover

Page 2

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Page 5

*Note: Spelling errors in the images above are corrected in the below .PDF*

Download .PDF E-Book from the Internet Archive for FREE:

https://ia601505.us.archive.org/26/items/the-poets-mechanical-fantasy/The%20Poets%20Mechanical%20Fantasy.pdf

 

Bulldog Ears...

 

Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/14/2000 3:30:09 AM 10/7/2022 8:06:56 AM	860

Bulldog Ears

Thump-ump. Thump-ump.
Thump-ump. Thump-ump.
Shhhhhh...........

He's on his way!
He's coming out today!
Hear his footsteps in my ear?
I can hear him coming near!

Thump-ump. Thump-ump.
Thump-ump. Thump-ump.
Shhhhhh......

Please don't give me way,
The bulldog is coming today.
He's walking out of my ear,
It's his magic footsteps I hear!

Thump-ump! Thump-ump!
Thump-ump! Thump-ump!
Shhhhhh......

Hide, under the covers quick!
I think that might do the trick!
He's got huge teeth, you see!
He's coming to get me!

Thump-ump! Thump-ump!
Thump-ump! Thump-ump!
Shhhhhh......

I'll turn my head on the pillow quick,
So he can't do that trick!
No, he won't get out!
If he does I'll scream and shout!

Thump-ump! Thump-ump!
Grrrrrrr........

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C)2000

Author's Comments

A nightmare from when I was small. Have you ever heard your heartbeat in your ears, your own pulse beating when you have your head lain just so upon the pillow? I had this dream that it was the footsteps of a bulldog, in that stage not quite sleep, when your body is captured between sleep and awake, and you cannot move.

Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/14/2000 3:30:09 AM 10/7/2022 8:06:56 AM	860

Total Comments: 1

Comments
Janine Daniel	spinnys@hotmail.com	www.spinnys.com	8/19/2000 6:12:09 AM
I remember this experience Dan but my parents used to say if I didn't go to sleep the boogey man would get me, which scared me to death. I thought that sound was him sneaking in!

The Bluest Angel...

 

Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/14/2000 2:53:36 AM 10/7/2022 1:48:24 PM	905

The Bluest Angel

Tiny Angel, wings so white,
Watch over me as I pray goodnight,
Let Mommy be safe and happy please,
You in your robes so blue, me on my knees.

I watch you fly in God's grace.

Tiny angel, flit down upon my cupped palms,
Smile up at me, singing, with no qualms.
A voice so ethereal and uplifting,
Carry my heart through a life that's shifting.

Thank you for carrying my prayers to heaven so well.

Bluer than the skies,
Angel with the bluest eyes,
Singing and free,
Thank you for loving me.

Fly always in beautiful childhood dreams.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C)2000



By: Daniel A. Stafford

Author's Comments

A dream, from very early childhood in Madison, WI. This took place when I was three, in the time of the Dinosaur Safari. I think it may have been inspired by watching a show on TV about the Navy flying team, the Blue Angels. You see, to me as a child, airplanes were the grandest vision in the whole world. We lived off an Air Force base. I lived in a world of fast jets, heard sonic booms before they stopped supersonic flight over the continental USA. I woke up crying because the dream was gone.
###############################################
Published in the International Library of Poetry's anthology,
"The Hush Of Moonlight", page 65, Library of Congress Number:
ISBN 1-58235-558-4

Author	Date Entered/Modified	Views
Daniel A. Stafford	8/14/2000 2:53:36 AM 10/7/2022 1:48:24 PM	905

Total Comments: 1

Comments
Janine Daniel	spinnys@hotmail.com	www.spinnys.com	8/19/2000 6:58:29 AM
Did I ever tell you that I lived on a RAAF base when I was young? I grew up with planes being a natural part of my everyday life. Your poem brings back good memories to me.

Learning The Last Song Of Summer…

Learning The Last Song Of Summer…

*Note: I had this dream this morning that I had to get down, here’s the result.*

It was dusk on the last day of Summer as I meandered down Main Street, filling my eyes with neon and party lights and the last indigo rays over the horizon. The evening crowd was thinning for the dinner bells of sidewalk cafes and patio tables, dining under soft old street lamps after a day of carnival.

The Gypsy wagons were parked all along the streets with little strings of lanterns strung between, and I spotted a wayward last August firefly out of the corner of my eye, or so I supposed.
Suddenly from three wagons down the street, I heard what seemed a mournful tenor saxophone bellow. I love the instrument, so I walked a little faster toward the sound. To my amazement it was no saxophone at all.

Between the parked wagons were some small tables and chairs, where sat a band of Vaudeville hobos dressed for all the world like Red Skelton on a Friday night. Each was holding a stringed instrument made of painted tin like an antique toy full-grown. I had heard the cello player warming up his strings.

I looked around in wonder at the bassist and banjo player and a beautiful tin guitar in expert old hands, and they began to play in a slow and mournful fashion, something like wind and distant thunder.

They were making little jokes of the people walking the street, harmless really. “Look, Loquatius, that one’s so tall he could touch the sky when he writes.” “Jedidiah, do you see that gal there in the colors of a balloon on the clouds?”

I stood in the shadows a bit, looking and listening in wonder, as they got in tune and played, Like grass grown dry and amber swaying in a near-harvest breeze. “Call for Carmelina and Serenata, Cornelius.” I heard the leader say.

Suddenly a young lady as beautiful as the moon led a bejeweled elephant up to the center of the band, and the two began singing a duet, Carmelina the elephant, and Serenata, whose name is Italian for Night-Song.

They serenaded Summer off down the street without moving an inch, and you could feel Jack Frost and his minions breathing on the road to town, all the way from the North Pole they were coming, and you could feel their steps on the road, steadily marching to the beat of the tin drum by lantern light.

I walked up and sat on a street bench rapt and listening to the melancholy pull of warm winds battling cool breezes. When the band stopped on the last soft notes of their song, everybody knew that Summer had surrendered, and Autumn was on her colorful way to town.

I walked up after and put a Finn in the leader’s tin cup, and offered cigars all around to the band, cracked open my bottle of dinner wine and poured the first glass for Serenata and then shared the rest with the band. I told them my name was Poet, and asked them to share their story.

“I can tell you a little.” said Loquatius, the leader of the Gypsy band. “We found Serenata and Carmelina in a pair of milkweed pods, many sweet Summers ago. Lady Summer told us to plant them by our campfire as Autumn walked the land that season, and gave us the music to learn.” “Play it for them as they rest in the Earth and grow through Winter’s long cold days,” she bade us, “and teach them to sing the verse as Spring warms you and they come forth and flower.” “Your song will hold the Storm Demons of Winter from your camp, and Jack Frost will never be able to do more than follow you.”

“So, you see,” said Loquatius, “We keep Winter and her cold-eyed demons from us as we roam from town to town, and the ladies here have learned to sing from the time they were wee seeds low to the ground.”

I looked at the warmth of my cigar cherry and the cheer of their never-frozen camaraderie, picked up a tin fiddle, and joined the End of Summer Tin Man Band, being sure to keep my pen and journal close to hand.

AquarianM

By” Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 08/13/2012

Dan Stafford August 24, 2013

The Letter Army...

Post by AquarianM on Mar 19, 2011 at 1:48am

The Letter Army...

They come upon you in the night thousands strong,
Running you over with swords of phrase and euphemisms of glory,
Wild tempest of thought scattered like bodies all about,
The only thing left in the morning cloaked in mystic glory,
But ok,
What a mad night it's been.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 02/16/2011

"Rembrandt...Sleeping" poem #11 

Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.
---------------------------------------
All of my published poetry is at:
www.lulu.com/spotlight/coloringbookforallages

Cat...Atonic...

Post by AquarianM on Mar 18, 2011 at 2:27am

Cat...Atonic...

Feline friends run in your dreams,
As always - independent,
Willful yet ignorant,
You try to coax them away from where the nightmares live,
But they're frisky and lure you closer,
To the point where sweat and worry wake you...

...and there the hungry little things are,
Staring at you.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 02/14/2011

"Rembrandt...Sleeping" poem #10. 

Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the universe.
Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls.
Loving words can work miracles.
---------------------------------------
All of my published poetry is at:
www.lulu.com/spotlight/coloringbookforallages

Vortices…

Vortices…

Great spinning energy,
Red flame flecks like spinning burning leaves,
Bits of paper in an orange-lit cyclone of mind,
Special places where the fire is a healing burn,
Cracking open the shells of rebirth,
What is a disaster for the old is an usher,
So get ready to dance at the center,
Spinning,
Glowing,
Burning,
Whirling light in the darkness,
Who will be be left standing?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/18/2016

Author’s note:
Every once in awhile I get flashes of insight, and they can be just subconscious imagery. I had a flash of this today. Like the place I was in was at the center of the fires of change, protected, just the place for an audience to ride it out.

Artists’ Card Project – Ace Of Hearts

Working on a project with 54 other artists, mostly from the Madison, WI area, to create a deck of cards. I picked the Ace of Hearts as my card. Here’s the final artwork version.

Keep looking up,

Dan

Click to enlarge pic

He flashes through clouds and vapors,

Ducking birds on the wing,

Scarf whipping in the prop-wash,

A race with Cupid to be won,

For there in his sights lies the most tender target,

A beating lonely heart,

Wishing and hoping for just that one shot,

The one that ends it all,

In a flash of ever-after joy,

He tips the stick forward and dives for it,

Goggles gleamingly clear,

He pulls the trigger on love,

Raining it down from on high,

A bubble that can’t be burst,

Not even by the light of day.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 2014 Poetry & artwork.

​
Dan Stafford November 9, 2014

Dreaming Of Being Tesla...

Dreaming Of Being Tesla...

There’s a beauty and elegance in the olden days,
A craft of the mind-to-hand,
A curvature of style and function,
Something at once cosmic meditation and genius inspired,
If only we had the old Gods of lightning again,
Miracles would charge forth electric,
Legends walk the land and the dream,
Power arcing in our hands.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 08/29/2014

Dan Stafford August 29, 2014

Racing The Tide...

Racing The Tide...

I built a lovely sand castle,
It sat high above the surf,
The rooms and turrets lush.

Time washes by,
Foam bubbles back into the sea are swept.

Every detail and sconce was a moment of my life,
A palace of ephemeral wonders and thoughts flashing by,
Fish in the cloud currents.

The sea is rising,
The waves always roll and roll.

I race the tide,
Trying to recreate all the details,
Here upon higher sand,
A place to last a century or a decade longer,
Just to leave a trace.

My world is Pompeii,
I pray for wind in my sails.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/25/2017

Author's Comment:
My long-time personal website, Word Whizzyrds / Super Aquarian ( www.whyzzrds.com / www.superaquarian.com ) is going under. I can't afford the hosting costs any longer. I will still retain the domain names, and re-point them after it goes down some time in August. I've been duplicating as much as I can at superaquarian.blogspot.com , and am doing a little more every night. To be honest, if you look at it on a desktop, I think that the Blogger site is slightly more visually beautiful. There's no way I can transfer it all in the amount of time, however. I also can't duplicate some features, and there are links around the web that will go dark. Some of the MP3 links and pictures I have on poems in the archives of this site, for example. I do have a backup of the full site, but it took me well over a decade to get it in place. The domains will be pointed at the Blogger site after the original goes nova.

Dusty Old Letters From Tesla...

Dusty Old Letters From Tesla...

You can see the genius in the handwriting,
Meticulously cluttered,
Like an attic closet lost for a century.

The dry must is blown off the yellowed envelopes,
All eyes widen with delight.

Back in the day,
It was known as "correspondence,"
Hand-written and soul-bared.

The wonders of the Universe,
Revealed,
Wax seals that had partly re-stuck,
Grudgingly giving up their sleeping secrets.

It was all tales of love,
Love with a mystical beauty un-bound by our petty rules,
Cosmos was her name.

Nicola gave us an adoring view under her skirts.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/11/2017

Rembrandt Sleeping, poem #26

Spindle...

Spindle...

Around,
The creation of sound,
Mostly bright colors,
Adapting to the time.

In a digital world,
Analog sounds sweet.

What lasts is what tells,
Long after the last album sells.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/12/2017

"Rembrandt Sleeping..." poem #27

Author's note:
If ever I am wealthy enough, I will buy a beautiful old console stereo, put in a top-of-the-line turntable and sound system, one that glows like stereos used to, and gently, reverently, set needle to vinyl...

Dry...

Dry...

In the midst of nothing,
Sleep is calling,
The well has nothing,
No Muse to move me.

Set the alarm and drift,
Nothing.

So that was last night...

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/08/2017

Rembrandt Sleeping, poem # 23

No Wasted Moments...

No Wasted Moments...

If sleep is a necessity,
It is also an enemy.

While I love dreams,
There is a limit I face.

Only so many hours,
Only so many days,
Years on this Earth,
Those are always counted.

If only dreams were instant...

---Or lives endless.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07-05-2017

"Rembrandt Sleeping," poem # 21

Stuffed...

Stuffed...

An eerie glow fills the room,
Flick of the switch.

My own thoughts remain unborn,
My head filled to bursting,
With the carefully-crafted thoughts of others,
People I don't even know.

Stuffed.

AquarianM

By Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 06-30-2017

Rembrandt Sleeping - Poem # 20

Nothing Roasted, Nothing Drained...

Nothing Roasted, Nothing Drained...

I reach for the long blue handle of the antique English coffee mill,
Only to spin it again and again,
Lovely roasted brown flows into a paper sack,
Awaking the aroma that makes this the best-scented garage in the world,
If only for a day.

I've tried electric grinding,
It simply hasn't the soul,
Yet better than nothing.

Put your arm in it,
Along with some heart.

It's like the difference between a sea foam green Hermes and paper,
Vs. the light of a glowing screen,
You can't feel the pages,
Never hear the bell,
Don't feel the "thunk" in your wrist of the hard return,
It hasn't the grace.

Stainless steel is the basket in my percolator,
The better not to strain out the flavor you know,
The scent and steam and bubbling rattle of morning,
It's gratifying and more addictive than stopping time,
The heat of the stainless steel and the winding of the cord,
Or the bakelite handle and fuzzy aluminum with a bubble on top,
Stowed in my camping gear.

Does the scent filling the house awaken you?

Can you hear the rattling siren call?

I drift back to a younger time,
Transported,
Adrift in sweet dreams of my grandparents,
In the days before Hemingway drowned in a bottle,
When pages were real and could yellow with age,
When you could hold spirits in your hands and work flowed from flesh and bone,
Time was slow and daylight languid on a Summer weekend.

The world has gone wide and shallow and fast like rapids,
I miss the deep still lakes and the slowness of actual books,
Things that might never be really known again.

I am a deeper puddle in the muddle of splash,
Staring into the empty coffee cup of the old life and times,
Thinking slowly,
Lavishly,
"Nothing roasted,
Nothing drained..."

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 06/28/2017