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Under my fingers, you shiver
Your fever hasn't subsided

It's been long hours you've lain ill
I am blaming the arrow.
Blaming the war.
Blaming you.

But I have no heart to say all of these,
As I dip a cloth to wipe your skin..
And wish to God that you will be alright..

Your arms..
Tested and strong
Yet covered with scars and fresh wounds..

The further I trace over your skin,
The heavier my breath becomes

My handsome liege..
A weak sigh I never want to let out in your presence, escapes me..

I turned my eyes to our pavilion entrance,
The sun has yet to descend to horizon,
and still the golden ray drapes over us all.

The air is filled with every taste of agitation and suspicious wondering eyes..

Our men have not uttered any words
since they brought you back.
Nor dared to ask,
And I dared not to tell

"It wouldn't have happened had you listened,"
Another protest chimes in my mind

"My lady," a weary, coarse whisper I am familiar with

My heart drops,
My tears rushing its way out..

Relief washes over me.
11:51 07/11 '25
- from one lifetime.
Steel pan in roadside dirt,
just beyond Exit 11: Quartzsite,
sun bouncing off like a flare.

Handle loose, rim dented,
but not ruined;
still whole enough.

It felt like one I swung
at Tomaso’s,
sweating
through the rush,
that night
we plated sixty covers
in under an hour.

Me, this pan,
were used
the way hard things are:
oiled, scrubbed,
flame-kissed and blackened.
Something thick stuck once,
then let go.

I lifted it,
right hand curved
around the handle
as though it never left.
Some things remember you
even when you forget yourself.

I set it in the backseat,
beside the blanket and bag.
thought I’d clean it up,
tighten the handle,
set it on flame,
hang it by a stove again.

I don’t believe in ghosts,
but I believe in steel,
in things that hold the heat
and give it back to you.
Kernel of this poem resurfaced from 2004. Driving the 10 freeway from LA to PHX.
Yuzuko 7d
The wild fury hidden below
Emanating a wicked black flames glow
But this wraith was bestowed
When the fog lifted in the meadows

This demon had finally hit the light
After hiding so long in the dead of night
Like heat, The truth started to arise
From amoung the murky waters of deceitful lies

The fire only seemed to have grown
And its presence soon became known
The apathetic rage had consumed the mask
In which this unearthly flame was latched

The wicked, evil flame
Wouldn't, or couldn't be tamed
Not even the black hole of he abyss
Could hold a hate like this

This ferocious, deprived monster turned a field of emotion
Into a empty, bottomless ocean
Worst of all no one saw the posined knife
That is plaguing such a once joyful life
Anger, Fury, Wraith... Humans
This will can lead down a path of nothing... emotionless.
Yuzuko Jun 15
I am so truly lost in a haze.
I tried with all my heart to love,
But all I’m met with is a lonely gaze.
It just wasn’t enough.

I’m drowning in the waves of a sea.
I’d created this sea of emotions.
Locked away and lost the key.
Now I watch as it consumes me.

Gazing at the moon above,
I see the scars over it.
And start to wonder where I messed up?
Yet, the moon maintained brightly lit.

The garden I called home met a flame,
And now I’ll be to blame.
Lizzie Bevis Jun 20
What if life was a match
struck in darkness
that brief, burning moment
as the flame grows
baptising all it touches
with its blessed light.

Even as the snuffer looms,
deaths cap leaves behind
a smouldering ember,
and as it all cools down
I can somehow still feel
the warmth.

If time was kinder
I'd keep the flame burning,
but since it will not yield,
I'll love and remember
the glow long after
the flame has died.

©️Lizzie Bevis
Life seems so short sometimes.
ash Jun 18
i just lit up a matchstick,
like a rock striking the bed of still water,
creating ripples seemingly impossible to control.
the matchstick ignited the moment it made contact
with the red phosphorus on the box's side.
it burnt so bright, so sharp—
i watched flickers of it, the tiny fire—a world of its own.
the flame started blue at the centre,
turned white, orange, red, and a bright yellow.
was this the sunshine's glow?
or the fire that grew from it?

i watched the match start to shrivel up,
the tip that burnt the brightest went down the fastest.
it dropped on my skin,
left a tiny scar in its midst.
and then the stick caught fire—
slowly, gradually, it ate itself up.
the world swallowed itself whole—
the world that the matchstick had created on its own.

such innocence. i wonder if it had life—
oh, but it did have life.
born with it—well, made the way it is supposed to be:
burn, leave a light, which lasts longer.
the originator of the fire, further.
and it dies because of its own existence.
the box that it comes within
carries what brings it to its ending.

and all those, multiple—oh so many,
that come within a box like a well-settled family,
leave one by one, burning themselves apart.
i wonder if the ones remaining behind know their part?

isn't that the irony of human beings as well?
our own worlds, created by us alone—
swallowing us whole,
and often the ones to bring us to ruin: our own.

sometimes i wonder
if i were to kiss the flame,
pull it in my arms, hug it, and set myself on fire—
would our worlds collide?
would i break the loop of life?
would i find the warmth i require,
or would i too turn to ash,
like the matchstick as my friend?

what would it say—
the flame, as it embraces me in return?
would it be like the caress of a mother’s hand,
or the sizzling burn of my father’s?
would this comfort be my destruction?

i wonder if the matchstick ever regretted its purpose.
i'm gonna add more to this, i hope
but isn't this like a theory?
Steve Page Jun 1
There’s a God who enflames.
He puts fire in the head
and though I have run, the wind
has never extinguished the flames,
though I have swum, the depths
have never doused them,
though I have sung long,
the music has never drowned them out.

So I have sat and I stilled
and as the flames settled
I found they were a gift, a friend,
and that this friendship warmed me.
And we ate and storied
our way through the nights.

And the flames took hold
as intended.
After Sheila Moylan’s exhibition, ‘Fire in the head’, an old Celtic expression describing being illuminated by inspiration.
sheilamoylanart.com
See also Acts 2  “And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Jude May 19
lately all I get
are broken backs
and droopy eyes.

cracked ribs
and split lips.

gurgling breaths
and hollow cheeks.

a bright flame burning
but buried
too deep.
Ali Hassan May 17
A flame once thrived on outer heat,
In comfort’s arms, its life complete.
It danced on winds, so wild, so free,
Unknowing warmth could ever flee.

It never learned to guard its core,
Believed the warmth would ever pour
The world had fed its every spark,
And lit its path through every dark

But one still day, the skies turned gray,
The winds grew cold and pulled away
The warmth it knew slipped out of sight,
And left the flame to face the night

It gasped for warmth, for hands, for light,
But frost had chained its wings in flight
Its hues grew pale, its spark withdrew,
A golden heart turned cold and blue

It tried to shout, but none replied,
No flame to spark, no light to guide
It fought to burn but lost the fight,
Now flickered weak in ash and night

Deep in the dark, a whisper grew,
A hidden beat no one once knew
A memory kept, by heart it's known,
A spark that glows when all alone.

In that silence, a spark was born,
A brand-new blaze, untouched, untorn.
No sun, no wind could feed its flame,
It burned alone untamed, aflame.

It shed the wish for borrowed light,
And made its warmth against the night.
Not just to live, but to ignite,
And turn the freeze to glowing white

The cold around began to shift,
Its biting edge began to lift.
The flame, now still but burning deep,
Had taught the dark itself to weep.

And as the frost began to fade,
A dance of light and shadow played.
For even in the coldest night,
The smallest flame can birth the light.
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