#afterglow
And when we reach that state
where ******* leave us reeling,
we simply let ourselves
be carried along
by the inertia
of our bodies.
I in you,
or you in me
in a constant rhythm,
a drowsy stupor,
a sweet unease
for dawn is fast approaching.
You close my eyelids with your fingers
and tell me that soon we must continue our journey.
Smiling,
I take your hand in mine,
kiss your wrist,
and remind you:
this
right here, right now
this is the journey.
May 15
May 15, 2026 at 8:58 PM UTC
Bend me to the silent truth almost touching what you are
Something slower, deeper lingers cosmic in a near too far
In that afterglow æfter glōwan when the sun in you fades
But your presence-god your presence in a seaward wades
Your colors everything what remains--I feel you slip away
You live in what the moment leaves behind-swish & sway
First we meet then align then stay with me soft gentle line
Diffusing holy fog-unholdable-impossible to forget divine
Never reaching-you're gone-rest in a warm you were here
You left me I still taste a bed of words hover hold me dear
Apr 1
Apr 1, 2026 at 7:40 AM UTC
The room exhales in dim gold—
your shadow hums against the wall,
slow as a vinyl turning its grief.
I taste the night on your mouth,
sweet-metal, ozone-soft, a promise
that never learned how to behave.
We learn each other in pauses.
In the way my name drifts
from your throat like heat
off asphalt at midnight.
In the way s
*** becomes a language
we refuse to translate—
only breathe.
A vase of _roses_ wilts on the dresser,
petals bruised like tender secrets.
Their perfume clings to my wrists,
a red echo, a velvet ache—
beauty with a countdown,
love with a visible fuse.
Outside, the city flickers its teeth.
You lean into the window light,
strike a match with your thumb,
and the dark listens.
_Cigarettes_ thread smoke through the air,
thin halos of almosts and not-quites,
our pasts loosening their grip.
I am a frequency you linger on.
You are the song that keeps ending
just before the chorus—
ambiguous, electric,
a soft catastrophe I choose again.
When morning knocks,
we do not answer.
We let the static keep us,
let desire settle like dust
on everything we never said.
Dec 18, 2025
Dec 18, 2025 at 5:23 PM UTC
that day stays
like warmth after a candle’s blown out—
proof something lived here,
even as the room cools.
your arms rewrote gravity.
for a moment,
I knew exactly where to belong
without having to ask.
the kiss was brief,
which is what made it cruel—
like being shown a language
and immediately losing the words.
now my body remembers
what my hands are denied.
every almost
leans toward you,
then collapses.
I keep touching the space
where you were,
as if absence
might one day
answer back.
Dec 18, 2025
Dec 18, 2025 at 8:34 AM UTC
I loved a star that never knew my name,
a silent flame,
fixed in the wreck of night.
Her stillness fooled me
into believing she sang.
She blinked once
in some long-dead century,
and I’ve lived ever since
by ghost light.
They say she's gone,
burned out or broken,
but I keep whispering psalms
to her afterglow,
drinking to the shape she made
in my sky.
I don't need the truth,
just the dream
of her burning.
Like something that waited for me,
not knowing I was too late
the moment I began.
Jul 17, 2025
Jul 17, 2025 at 9:38 PM UTC
Greenlights takeover the afterglow of the sun,
Raindrops paint cities on our windowpane,
We run onto the street with our bare feet
Hand in hand, holding onto a parachute made of dreams.
Feb 22, 2021
Feb 22, 2021 at 6:01 PM UTC
For we did sometime wake
In the half lit day
Half dressed,
Half a-smile, half asleep
Deep in languor where we lay
With wooly eyelids
To be kissed gently.
So helping ourselves to each other
Until we both were empty.
And the light halved in soft refrain;
Became a painting desiring a worthy frame.
Jan 1, 2021
Jan 1, 2021 at 5:14 AM UTC
Your love is of a sacred kind, that leaves me basking in the afterglow of your longing embrace.
There I find myself alight with emotions so radiant that their golden rays burst forth from my ribcage as if holy arrows have pierced my very soul.
And it is in your divine light that I wish to remain ever more.
Aug 17, 2020
Aug 17, 2020 at 8:44 AM UTC
A gentle pungence of the nutmeg
Burns the hands that dwell in its ashes
Sprinkle generously, lest you want the
concoction, to turn out bland.
Yet, how would bland be? A curry.
Dressed in an assortment of spices,
As, Cardamoms and Peppercorns and
Cinnamons and Aniseeed_ Do add a
bay leaf as you temper the potion
to a base.
It is joy, manifold_ flavours not just in
conclusion but odyssey of the process.
It is joy, unbound, creation nienté
could bring about such happiness !
Joy of the 'Kitchen Wizard' is
in his pots and potions found !
Apr 14, 2020
Apr 14, 2020 at 2:54 PM UTC
All Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch
Something remarkable, perhaps ...
the color of her eyes ... though I forget
the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair
the way it blew about ... I do not know
just what it was about her that has kept
her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow
that lasted till July would be less rare,
clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind
sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’
and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow
and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond
the freezing point which keeps all things the same
... till what remains is fragile and unlike
the world above, where melted snows and rains
form rivulets that, inundate with sun,
evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream
remake the world again ... I do not know
that we can be remade—all afterglow.
[Note: “inundate with snow” is not a typo.] Keywords/Tags: afterglow, remarkable, light, color, eyes, hair, snow, frozen, cavern, grotesqueries, freezing, thaw, degrees, melt, melted, permafrost, snow, rain, rivulets, sun, evaporate, evaporation, love, loss, parting, separation
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 1:17 AM UTC
Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...
once slow to match this reckless spark in me,
this moon in ceaseless orbit I became,
compelled by wilder gravity to flee
night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...
for one pale flame that seemed to signify
the Zodiac of all, the meaning of
love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie
in dawning recognition is enough ...
enough each night to bask in you, to know
the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.
Keywords/Tags: afterglow, stars, suns, planets, zodiac, moon, orbit, gravity, universe, love, radiation, night, exist, existence, time
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 1:07 AM UTC
We are here
Whiskey addled
And full of quiet
Smokily cigaretted in the after.
Every touch
Taps a nerve
That shivers across
Our pillowed universe
And meets in our gaze
Puckered lips
Kiss eyelids to close
All our fervour
Now to sleep
On bed sheets and skin
Tangled toe to toe
And palm
To heart.
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 5:04 AM UTC
Mosquito bites and warm summer nights.
Cold beers and unfounded drunken fears.
Sinning in the garage,
Seeing double like a mirage
Driving slow and enjoying the afterglow.
Sweet *** and the afterglow.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 1:30 PM UTC
your disheveled yet
soft hair that's been
run through
and through
with my hands
your chest
that heaves
in breaths in a
way to
calm down
the leftover
excitement
your eyes
that look at me
with such affection
your lips
on which
i placed
countless kisses
all over
our hands
entwined ever
so loosely
yet stays
as it craves
the other's
touch
you're so
*******
beautiful
Jan 1, 2020
Jan 1, 2020 at 10:00 AM UTC
Ragged breathing, tangled legs
Beating hearts, a crazy mess,
wrinkled sheets, so you'd know,
Two souls basking in the afterglow !!
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 12:32 AM UTC
Do you remember how you stood there ?
When the sun had set and the afterglow started to fade, you stood proud, slightly upon the dusk, brilliantly, majestically yet so tiny,
You looked so lonely and helpless, as light faded into darkness,
Covering the world; a sweet blanket filled with many twinkling stars,
How impossible it seems to turn back, have you realized how you changed so drastically, my little sparkling friend over such little time?
Irrational the things hidden away by the night, no moon comes to rise
If you would realise, how this world really is, or the place you are being led, softly, gently, elegantly to stand would be like, what then ?
Have you changed because, you calmly, without having any knowledge fear the night and it's lingering, loitering darkness ?
The night is stained with illusions, keep your gaze up to the sky and follow another star, then surely you would be able to reach your goal,
When you engage in pure furies, the whereabouts of the heart remain undetermined, you just lose yourself within its wandering fragrance,
Because the world you had taken for granted collapsed into somber,
Collapsed into a dimmer more frightening state of undefined beauty,
Everything is far too late, impossible to return now, it has been decided that it maybe should have been so, a loitering darkness to be,
You are part of this world now, standing where you are don't you think that this sky, slumbering earth is as allure as nothing else ?
If it awakens your wish will become true and you will disappear by the sight of the daybreak, the sun takes over with her golden light,
The world you have forgotten will reappear then everything starts a new and maybe one day you too will understand, my dearest,
That the night is something very beautiful.
~ Umi
May 3, 2018
May 3, 2018 at 6:00 PM UTC
Se⋅ren⋅di⋅pit⋅y n. 1. The uplifting, seemingly never-ending weightlessness brought on by a beautiful event of pure happenstance. 2. When light hits one's face, esp. a friend or lover, in just the right way, and every aspect of one's inner beauty is displayed: lying in the morning sun / the ghost of curtains over faces / dust mote flurries around sleeping figures / or under the dim glow of decorative lights / and digital clocks reading 3:06 AM / exposed hearts, exposed minds / out on our sleeves / your inner beauty visible externally / to the world, to me / your face aflame with embarrassing thoughts / my face aflame with visible affection / or lying out under the Milky Way / under the Universe / constellations and bodies of memories hang above our heads / and watch us grow from millions of years in the past.
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 12:23 AM UTC
Painted gold and set afire
Sky embraces earth, eternal
Conversation of light & darkness, serenaded by melodies of awakened life...... do not sleep yet
Arise....walk out to greet the Night
And Even if we miss the SUNset, the afterglow still rewards us for heading out to walk water's edge lit by glowing embers of dusk
Jul 21, 2017
Jul 21, 2017 at 4:32 AM UTC
Lying, breathing, soaking in my lover
The afterglow illuminating the night.
Soft skin, smooth to touch, her belly freshly filled
Claimed to be the place where my child shall grow.
Fingers find their way around one another
Clutching to the new future ahead.
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 2:19 PM UTC
Basking in postcoital bliss, talking between the sheets
catching our breath, giggling with laughter treats
Laying in the afterglow, tangled in the sheets
sweating cooling skin, and completing greater feats
Blissful in post euphoria, feeling quite appeased
finding comfort in warm arms, putting me at ease
Still sighing, touching, tasting, nuzzled in content
reveling in the splendor, our minds and bodies, spent
Let me drink, this moment in, before we turn to clocks,
wishing only to start again, as seconds ticking mocks.
Snuggling together, eyes and hands so locked
wishing for ourselves, more hours, on the clock
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 2:21 PM UTC
Laying in the afterglow, tangled in the sheets
sweat cooling skin, and completing greater feats
Basking in precoital bliss, talking between the sheets
catching our breath, giggling with laughter treats
Still sighing, touching, tasting, nuzzled in content
reveling in the splendor, our minds and bodies, spent
Blissful in post euphoria, feeling quite appeased
finding comfort in warm arms, putting me at ease
Snuggling together, eyes and hands so locked
wishing for ourselves, more hours, on the clock
Let me drink this moment in before we turn to clocks
wishing only to start again as seconds ticking mocks.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
I'm sad
my friend
sad
you tried
we tried
we cried
you fought
we fought
for naught
craven creature
writhed
and won
I'm sorry
friend
so sorry
how can sun
be gone
yet birds sing
don't they see
can't they tell
it is but stars
an afterglow
all is naught
life has passed
your ailing breath
expired
from darkness sown
by drug cartels
intent
on breaking will
of *** plant babes
sourced for fame
stealthy greed
seduces most
millions sought
want you
and me
they're undeterred
their filly reach
a blinding hate
of freedom's rights
leave humans be
as infants wail
and white coats play
mere blinded dupes
pay dues required
in hallowed halls
and now you're
dead
yes, dead
not anywhere
you've left us
gone
from dirt to dirt
and ash to ash
and so it ends
somehow we must
decide to breathe
when you cannot
I hold you still
in memory's dream
my brother sweet
though in my arms
the grief burns
pure
writhe impotent
in essence true
we're nil
no flow of tears
will soothe you now
they've ceased
the dreaded C
has had its day
too bad
too bad
our useless words
rebound
a spinning wheel
pathetic croaks
on fade porch
perhaps if we...
I should have said...
why didn't I...
and so it goes
tortured mind
unwilling thrusts
accept the truth
grim reaper came
and now he's
gone
another love
will soon be
marked
why you dear friend
Lord, please
not you
the rivers dam
there are no streams
that be enough
remorse it screams
why not the swines
the great unwashed
why was it you
the good
- why
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 6:01 PM UTC
My days at Penlandia definitely reached its afterglow
Now it’s hard for me to find my rhythm
Hopefully, the soul of some of my poetry will find their mark
If not unto someone’s head, then to somebody’s heart
I hope my words are not just vandals on the wall
Nor merely a stain on the paper
I created them to touch, stab, **** and make love
To bring peace unto hell and create fire in the sky above
It’s up to your eyes now, my dearest readers to magnify
Hate my stuff or love them
What's the reason why I’m inches away on parking my pen?
Voices from the other side echoes within my ear again and again
That’s why I’m writing this poetry as if my last
But if one day you’ll see me deploying another poem
I hope you enjoy stories with an unexpected ending
Besides, even the afterglows have a little radiance remaining
Mysterious Aries
11/19/2015
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 4:22 AM UTC
Tread carefully as you go
down the path before you.
Feel your feet roll over moss,
as your tarsals adhere to sap.
Let the breeze seep into your pores,
and sweep away the daily struggles.
Watch the leaves boogy in the sunlight,
and join them in the festivities.
Accept your surroundings
Accept the awareness.
Release your inhibitions...
Synchronize your freedom...
with the tree bark...
melting...
away...
Love & let go.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 2:48 PM UTC