#copper
I found a staircase carved into thunder
Each step a tooth pulled from sleeping beasts
The air tasted of copper
And half-remembered hymns
I climbed until my name fell off my shoulders
And rolled back into the darkness like a coin
Mirrors waited
Cracked and sighing with old weather
And when I reached for one
It bit my hand
A lantern swung from the jawbone of a tree
Older than remorse
Moths gathered like ash in my mouth
And taught me to speak
In vanished dialects
Even the silence had a pulse
I tried to pray once
But the sky folded its arms
Every word transformed into wolves
Who wouldn't approach me
The horizon was a wound stitched with lightning
Far below
Cities slept in the stomachs of drowned bells
Their windows flickering with dreams left unclaimed
I wanted to wake them
But my hands resembled rivers
And everything I touched forgot its shape
By dawn
I had grown antlers made of frost
And a mouth full of rain
The staircase ended in nothing
Except the sound of wings
Turning to glass
Aug 1, 2025
Aug 1, 2025 at 4:57 AM UTC
___π±πππ, ππππππ
ππππ ππππππ πππππππππ,
π·ππ ππππππππππ πππππππ πππππ ππ’ ππππππππ ππππ;
π»πππππ ππππ πππ ππππππ ππ πππππ πππ ππππππ,
πΌπ’ππππ π πππ ππππ ππ πππππ ππππππ,
π±πππ ππππππ πππππ ππ πππππ.___
Jun 3, 2021
Jun 3, 2021 at 3:44 AM UTC
#*In sun dappled lawns
Runs a golden rivulet
Copper-pod tree crowns*#
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 9:32 AM UTC
Like tremulous waves of copper, the sun rises on your face
In the early morning peace
The birds, awakening, sing veraciously to one another, enveloped
In the ambivalence of the falling colors
Blue, yellow, orange, red, and black, all mesh together
In an embossed dew on your cheek
As you part your lips,
Inhaling the fresh taste of the morning air
Belied, you exhale,
Breathing
Knowing.
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 6:58 PM UTC
Blued, nickel reflecting light,
Shining on the Reaper.
Frosted steel
Open-mouthed,
Longing to swallow
A half-dozen biscuits
1 part Copper,
1 part brass,
2 parts lead,
1 part saltpeter,
1 part charcoal,
1 part sulfur,
The recipe for the dough.
Once masticated
in jaws of tungsten
It spits the metal bolus,
And gives new name to grim.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 9:02 PM UTC
Faith is a golden coil
That fits so greatly in the binding
Of texts that
Dictate a non-universal
Truth
Faith is a silver coil
That wraps around you nicely
Tightly
When times are hard and
Icy
Faith is a copper coil,
Cheap, commonly used and
Slithers, a bronze snaking cloud
Seeping quickly into
Permeable minds
Faith is an aluminum coil,
The easy way out.
Steals from your conscious
What can be found in
Yourself
Faith is essential
Needed to man
And to man armies
Unable to feel soft,
Cotton-ball faith
Anymore
Cameron Bell, Copyright Β© 2019
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 11:50 PM UTC
A little copper penny
Lying alone on the sidewalk
Rained on, stepped on, walked right by
No one cares about a penny
What could it possibly buy?
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 7:38 AM UTC
Hands covered in copper,
we kissed
down by the staircase
near period 5th.
You held my waist
all thoughts wilted away
hands covered in copper
we kissed the bad memories away.
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 9:46 AM UTC
it is not a knife
when you gut the fish,
it's your words.
you live in a cabin,
and when you leave the cabin
everything else becomes
the facade of the forest.
my roots are here, beneath
your words, beneath the wet earth,
i am a tree growing here,
spreading my branches
like a dancer,
i am grateful
for the way you **** me,
i am grateful for the way
i die like a fish,
flopping and gasping
for air. i wait for the fire
to come, it comes ever
summer
and when it comes
for
you,
i know the prayers
you whisper;
the cabin never
falls, the cabin never
burns,
and the river
never runs dry
Nov 26, 2017
Nov 26, 2017 at 5:03 PM UTC
Γtzi
Even in my long sleep,
I dreamed of this.
A waking by strangers
A grasping of my wrist
And I wrench it back from them!
My dreams beneath the ice
Were warm, in summer vales,
Where children played
Under my watch, old but hale.
An easy thing, my guard was then.
I tend sore limbs as supper warms,
And aching joints inflamed,
And muscles tough as ibex horn;
For a while I can be lame.
And see my copper ax in the red-gold flame.
I dream of how it came to me,
After vanquishing a headsman.
Intruders fell before me!
And I earned this talisman.
Weapon, scepter, power of my clan!
Then I was sent across the mountain,
A lone journey I knew well.
To trade with kinsmen in a the northern glen,
With gifts, arrow shafts and tales to tell,
Never guessing betrayal that walked behind.
Alone upon the highest peak
I ate my last meal by the fire.
To me the gods seemed trying to speak,
As men I knew climbed higher.
We had words, but they were my kin!
In my long sleep I wonder why
These false friends turned to hate.
Iβd watched over them, yet they cried
That my rule was done, and it was too late,
So I turned from them and faced my doom.
I crossed the last protruding rock
And now felt safe from them.
But then a blow, beneath my heart: a shock!
I fell in a soft, snowy glen,
And then a dull pain in my skullβ¦and black.
Beneath me, I can feel the ax;
Theyβd never take that from me!
Nor my arrows, quivers and packs;
And risk the fury of the gods.
Theyβd taken my power and left a naked soul.
Five-thousand years I spent beneath the frost,
Until I was found and freed.
My scattered ions watched, angry and lost.
They dragged my body from its bed
And my soul from another life.
Now part of me lies in a crypt
Another frozen tomb.
If only I hadnβt run and slipped,
All those ages ago,
I would now lie in sacred ground,
Back in the earth to which all are bound.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 10:16 AM UTC
*Perhaps I am mistaken
Perhaps you are not as you seem in the light of day
Glimmering like the Pyrite on the infinite cliff
On the edges of which you keep me, ever at bay
Because after all of the crystal
And shale has been stripped away
And the quartz, the granite, the limestone pale
Have fallen to the earth beneath
To be crushed underneath the walking waves
Perhaps then I will see you shine on a barren day
And my eyes will be better for the sight
Even if your worth is not in gold
But as I fear it might be, in clay*
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 10:58 PM UTC
She gave me a six foot copper wire
Infused with delicate lights
That glowed like small, rosy Suns.
Little does she know
That I bathe in this faint light
And I am no longer afraid
Of the Dark.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 9:46 PM UTC
You were made of gold and I was made of copper
You were sunlight and I was moonlight
You had bright smiles and facts
I had secrets and books
I shouldn't have been this entranced by you
But life is tricky and fate is odd
So maybe this is right
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 10:18 PM UTC
The shadows dance their waltz with glee, among the floor of dead leaves and animal bones As the sun glistens among the tin hearts, and copper tears
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 9:32 PM UTC
This terribleness. The blur of traffic lights and puddles paints Los Angeles on my face at night. It's so hard to know who will doze in my blind spots. Sunflower seeds and ******* lining the carpet. I sat on the front porch for five hours gutting the wolves from my appendices. Usually the headaches go away with the squashing of the lights. Fluorescents are the worst, halogens second, and 60-watt 120-volt light bulb the bane of my existence. I look at my phone but I cannot summon a quirky 120 character quip. I need excedrin but all I have to grape flavored children's aspirin. I should have asked for the water. How many unfinished glasses of water have I left around this world?
Maybe Bruce and I will squash after work. I can hear his weekly catalog of two night stands with those married transient women who drive from Santa B. I hate golf, I could have made carried a career in this resentment. Maybe rolling down the window will alleviate some of this pressure. Maybe it's barometric pressure, The Baby is here in time to drag the houses out to sea. It feels like Michelangelo is carving The David in my head and it's the chiseling I've never wanted. It's Tuesday and the drugs were horrible. They killed five of them today. We wrapped their heads in blankets from the Thrifty, and had to have the interns find clothes that would fit for the Christian caskets. Two days until Giving Thanks Day.
I am wrapped in copper and stuck in amber. I am acquitted by nonsense and stipulation, sick with nausea and pushing my forehead into the steering wheel. This is all terrible. The lying I've never told myself. The people that don't even know it's lying. Her and I always seem to escape with our happiness and pleasure in tow. The odds are slim, but our clothes have never fit too tightly.
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
Blankets covered the floor
White like forgotten snow
Ruffled in places,
Dust settled, grey patches in White
Foot touches floor, the blanket seeps red
Like a virus spreading ,
Consuming the white
The floor now like a wine,
A smell of copper
I touch the crimson,
A ripple spreads across the room,
From wall to wall,
Ripples come together forming more,
Then towards me they encroach
Liquid,
Scarlet,
Waves,
Washing over my feet,
A grip I feel as the crimson
Pulls,
Seduces,
Wrenches,
At my feet,
I collapse like a toppled tree,
The waves crash upon the wooden floor
Each like a hook pulling me in more,
Then I am consumed
Underneath the waves of crimson death
There is only darkness,
My screams unheard
Not alive,
Not yet dead,
I look up as the crimson turns white,
And where once there was liquid
There is now white sheets waiting patiently
For those who don't tread carefully
Only death does await.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 8:13 AM UTC