Dreaming in Noir

Fernando Esteban Flores

November 24, 2021

Chapter One Hundred Forty-Nine

It was late November

The light was beginning

To thin out over the streets

The shadows spoke

Of loss & love

Whispers pierced the air

Indecipherable yet

They floated above the trees

Like kites stringing along

A line of untenable thoughts

It was then that Lao Tzu

Spoke out of a passing cloud

As in the days of old

When the Supreme Presence

Made its will known

Through the prophets we are told

Seek the solitude of the soul

He said

& the odor of melancholia

Filled the evening like the 

Fragrant burning of copal

& the last rays of the sun

Dropped like a red net

Over the world

Fernando Esteban Flores is a native son of Tejas and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He has three books of poetry: Ragged Borders, Red Accordion Blues, & BloodSongs available through Hijo del Sol Publishing. He also appears in multiple journals, reviews, newspapers, and online sites. Flores was selected in 2018-19 by the Department of Arts & Culture of the City of San Antonio, with support from Gemini Ink for his poem Song for America V (Yo Soy San Antonio) as one of 30 poems/poets to commemorate the City’s Tricentennial anniversary.