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Originally Posted by whswhs
I was wondering if there's a possibility of the moon's axis of rotation pointing directly toward the planet, so the planet was its "pole star," in effect. . . ?
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It would only be temporary. Conservation of momentum will keep the spin axis pointing in the same direction, like a top. So consider if you had a situation where the moon's spin axis was pointing directly at the planet. As the moon orbited its planet, the moon would move off to the side but the axis would continue to point in the same direction, so that it would no longer be pointing at the planet. A quarter orbital period later, in fact, the planet would be rising and setting over the projection of the moon's equator onto the celestial sphere, and a half orbital period later the planet would have switched poles.
You would also need the moon far enough away from the planet that it wasn't tide locked.
Luke