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Sulfur yellow a watery burn
Created in an alchemist's urn.
Water feeds fire as both evolve--
The formula of hates resolve.

You waver rights to be treated fair
Like Sampson selling locks of hair
Or selling age to a 95 year old--
Sheep follow only to die in
their fold.

Fiery seas begin as a rift
Water being the only gift.
But nothing, nothing is ever
free
once transmuted into this sea.

But logs do drift and beaches
claim
All that gave this sea its name.
Copyright ©2024
Daniel Irwin Tucker

Sonnet
If our lives were captured in paintings,

each moment recorded in brush strokes

I would collect all of my

history into a warehouse,

set it on fire

and dance in the pyre's flames-

until everything

turned to ash.
Bekah Sep 2024
I am the fire they set,
The one they can’t contain
The whisper on the wind
That calls out your name

I will not break
Or bend, or crack
Paranoia will seep in
Waiting for my attack

I will not go gently
Into the night
I will lurk the dark corners
Deep in your mind

I am the water
That washes away
The sins that you buried
To hide all your shame
Karma Nov 2024
To forge a poem,
A bar not resinous.
To steal a fire
From top a precipice.
To bear the heat
Of finite flames.
Embrace the hurt,
Engulf the pain.
Feel your wrist
Become alight,
Feel your hand
Begin to write,
Feel your thoughts
Escape the brink,
And feel your pen
Run off its ink.
Sparked inspiration
Ignites internal,
And burning paper
Becomes infernal.
Ashes, scorching
Stack in piles,
And ashen writing
Line in files.
A dying fire
Has lost its flare,
So write again
If you so dare.
Just light your hand
Ablaze again,
Consume the torch,
And raise your pen.
David Hilburn Sep 2024
Forget the fire...
Finer, by a cerebral introduction
Space for use, and a hello, in no denial
Has conceded our future, a mightier reflection...

The quite of quiet
When we are, a hap to convince
Avidly, the knowing of a right
Seldom and the many, to look for ends

Energy in the name...
Odd to argue, but with misery's lip
Weren't we the spite of an austere shame
Grant us the unity in a tow, and we will show wit

Cares of a more, then mercy
Excel's at a weary eye...
Been a shadow of example, to worry
Is a wanton call of suicide, a sigh...

To collect a silent fury?
The marvel of assumption's tongue
No future, knowing a fool to carry
A wish to oblivion, is our courage a hero already won?
Where is the sound
            That once gave meaning
To my name.
It seems lost in the echoes
                    The sound of a
Crying shame.

                     I try to pinpoint the time
Channels I was
Passing through
                    When I could interpret pre-echo
When each syllable
Rang true

                   When my offspring was purer
Relative to
Innate impurities.
                    Girl, boy vastly interrupted.
So much for blood
As a surety.

Belly fire lessens with years.
                     Caution blows back
In the wind.
Flirting with status quo delusions.
                    Slogans & logos
Slowly rescind.

                 Pure thought tainted with church & state.
Leftist & Right Wing views
Scientifically spliced.
                  This new world creation seldom takes sides.
Calculates the outcome & always
Dresses nice.

I’m halfway there, queasy still
                    Rhetorical views beginning to
Make sense.
Cautious malaise on either side.
                       Starch chaffing neck  
Outcome offense.

                       I occasionally hear my voice
That blew with caution
In the wind.
                    Volcano dormant still pushes the crust.
Delusions sicken me back
To the fringe.
©2017 Daniel Irwin Tucker
Valentine Sep 2024
quickly the fire truck
jumps from its station
clamoring into traffic
disrupting its flow
like a boulder sat in water
the cars swerve and collect
on the side of the road
only to soon return to their stream
the casual chaos continues
and I wonder what it’s like
to be able to go about routine
when tragedy is occurring
just up the river
Little, large and tiny embers
Flew as if they’d grown their own feathers,
As flames erupted from my armchair leathers,
And long forgotten, left behind endeavours,
I am now standing near a man-made crevasse.

Feeling fire consuming my internal threshold,
Its painful lair,
Whilst emitting a strange glare,
My legs are shaking, and my hands and feet are bare.
I’ve no more knives and needles left to spare.

My potted roses have now withered,
The moment for I so long have lingered.
Their armaments in time became so dull,
Grinding my eternal thoughts into a lull.
The pain just never stops, I guess.
It doesn’t matter if their thorns sting less and less.

Her tender, warm and flower-scented head–
Oh, how I wish I could have pumped it full of lead.
And what of our dreams of an ascetic rural livelihood?
I reckon that moment you weren’t in the mood.
Us slowly splitting moisty birchwood logs.
Beloved, it seems it’s raining cats and dogs.
But now it’s nevermore;
I feel I’ve changed my history and lore
For this moment and evermore.

Or have I just repressed my need for gore?
A fairy meadow shaken to the core–
Before me the country house, I enter may not dare.
It is now derelict, in disrepair,
Winds sweeping through its crooked wooden stair.
I sense that deep inside she never even cared.

And I am crawling spitting blood and ash.
Fires burned my limbs into a pile of scorched flesh,
Life fleeting from my helpless carcass,
But now I have become Augustus–
Eternal city,
Our Rome I set aflame
With wood you brought, I know it isn’t fair,
Just as my radiant words fell into your ashtray.
I shall not lie,
Countless cats and dogs falling from the sky,
Of our beloved pets, corpses lying here and there.
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