Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Peyton L Apr 2020
Ash floats around me
my hands caked in soot
the burnt match between my fingers.

Remnants of flames burning in my eyes,
smoldering rubble
smells of smoke and destruction.

I lift the match to my mouth
touch the tip to my tongue
the salty taste worth the raging fires of my sins.
Somehow inspired by the salt lamp I have on my desk.
lua Apr 2020
Chest falls as smoke rises
Up into the air
The memory of a past
Long forgotten
Buried under a mountain of ash
Scrap metals, old wood
And photographs burnt at the corners.
all but a faint, distant memory.
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and grey,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush,
for rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames’ exhausted, drifting ash,
and petals falling from the rose, ...
I raise my cup before I drink,
saluting ghosts of loves long dead,
and silently propose a toast—
to joys set free, and those I fled.

Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme. Keywords/Tags: toast, death, time, passages, dreams, clay, flesh, ash, sun, sunset, age, grave, end
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she sees are the nights of despair stars endure.
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems sure.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end . . .
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as she sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, night and day rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintry light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.

Keywords/Tags: life, death, flesh, mortality, time, sand, hourglass, ash, loss, night, moonlight, stars, rain, grass, despair
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Only Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight in a pale silver rain caresses her cheek.
What she sees are the nights of despair stars endure.
Nothing is questioned, yet the answer seems sure.
Night, inevitably, only seems to end . . .
Flesh is the stuff that does not endure.

The sand begins its passage through narrowing glass
as she sums all things past, and to come.
Only flesh does not last.

Eternally, night and day rise and fall with the sun;
each bright grain, slipping past, will return.
Only flesh fades to ash though unable to burn.
Only flesh does not last.

Only flesh, in the end, makes its bed in brown grass.
Only flesh shivers, frailer than the pale wintery light.
Only flesh seeps in oils that will not ignite.
Only flesh rues its past.
Only flesh.

Keywords/Tags: life, death, flesh, mortality, time, sand, hourglass, ash, loss, night, moonlight, stars, rain, grass, despair
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Dust
by Michael R. Burch

Flame within flame,
  we burned and burned relentlessly
    till there was nothing left to be consumed.
    Only ash remained, the smoke plumed
  like a spirit leaving its corpse, and we
were left with only a name
ever common between us.
  We had thought to love “eternally,”
    but the wick sputtered, the candle swooned,
    the flame subsided, the smoke ballooned,
  and our communal thought was: flee, flee, flee
the choking dust.

Keywords/Tags: dust, ash, spent flame, smoke, spirit, corpse, common, name, divorce, separation, parting
N Jul 2019
Until dawn,
a cigarette ash
flew into her right eye

The cigarette remained alight
despite the flood of tears
streaming down her cheeks  

With such a hell
blazing inside her,
she put out fire with smoke

Solitude was her
only consolation,
and all she longed for

There is not a soul
that she yearns for,
but for hers to burn out
Aquila Mar 2020
When our hands' touch
i feel electricity
run through my veins
like vines turned to ash



and then you pull away
and then you pull away
and then you pull away
ugh
Emily Mitchell Feb 2020
Please end my nightmare!
I can no longer endure
this unwanted curse.

Free my weary soul
from its prison of moonlight
strike and save us both.

Be strong love I pray
when morning comes hold me close
till I turn to ash.
This was inspired by a Nightwish song called slaying the dreamer.
Next page