#soot
Mellow sunrised.
The dew of the afternoon high light.
Paradise sunset.
Tuscany, Marigold, Chartreuse, Caramel.
Amber, Copper, Olive, Saffron.
Honeycomb mystery of rejection... or doubt.
Freedom sparks; feet and hip dilate and constrict; lips close to feel the colors and open again, blinking to suffocate the oasis into the dull reality of smog and soot, of cemetery.
The psychedelic picturesque star stares back, dusk-like fireworks of heaven gained and lost.
One second that sealed his fate.
Death will be hazel eyes.
Jan 14, 2021
Jan 14, 2021 at 12:57 PM UTC
not every word beginning with ‘t’
means the same
but they all must be crossed
seems to represent human
and politics takes humanity
out of social change
progress is subjective
holding keys only for a point of reference
which is just a point
within a point, which is only all
just a referential hypothetical
Dec 5, 2020
Dec 5, 2020 at 1:22 PM UTC
Twice
by Michael R. Burch
Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days
when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.
But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:
rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.
Originally published by The Lyric. Keywords/Tags: relationship, reunion, reuniting, parting, breakup, breaking up, fire, embers, soot, cinder, cinders, sputter, sputters, sputtering, cold, ash, ashes
Apr 15, 2020
Apr 15, 2020 at 2:25 AM UTC
the ocean is black
black for the soot,
black for the stress,
black for the death,
black for the way their eyes fade out and stare at the starless sky listlessly.
the trees are black
black for the lifelessness,
black for the melancholy,
black for the emptiness,
black for the way the remains look after abandonment all those years ago.
the sky is black
black for the pollution,
black for the harshness,
black for the hopelessness,
black for the way the world looks even when the snow falls, when there's no one left to watch its filthy black chunks mar the earth anyway.
Nov 24, 2019
Nov 24, 2019 at 10:45 PM UTC
I watched the coal-black smoke
of the ancient chimney
as it chased a messianic dream
swirling up the smoggy expanse
to the freedom of the blue sky
for a lungful of sanity.
I watched the gloom
of the soot-smeared boy
in tattered khaki
as he longed for the dark wings of smoke
to take him on its pilgrimage to freedom.
Withered by the corrupting fumes of the chimney
he lay there.
With no hands to hold to the smoke
as it spiralled up,
with no breath to feel
the freedom of the azure sky,
he lay there.
Like a faint twig
feeding the wrath of a funeral pyre
he lay there!
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 4:44 AM UTC
My work day woke to Monk,
the click of typing keys,
clock watched, Spotify playing,
random thoughts rose like bees
to freeze in these jagged lines,
then swarm in threatening flight.
Hours of data entry later,
on a stool, in a bar, a clock's
hands tock, I flick a wrist,
and slur my words concluding
an anguished monologue,
“They call it work, you know.”
Awash at home, in the strobe of
pixelated panel light,
visions surge and dissipate
with the pulse of the night. Osip,
were you tempered to embrace
attention’s fugitive caress?
You etched memory’s texture
with candle soot for ink,
and the gulag’s blackened gaze -
I type lines by hunt and peck
humming Monk’s WELL YOU NEEDN’T,
hoping for an adequate phrase.
Copyright © 2004 Gary Brocks
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 10:38 PM UTC
Flames.
Flames result in something burning into ashes.
The stronger ones, that resist, are not saved from the effects either.
They blacken.
And when a fire and passion as strong as ours burns out, one of us is going to be reduced to ashes and the other one is going to carry the weight of the darkest heart around.
I strive to keep us ablaze because somewhere I know that the pain of being reduced to nothingness is much lesser than carrying around a broken piece of what once was.
Burnt from all sides.
And I know that I'm the one who's going to resist.
Oh, I fear.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 11:09 AM UTC
I came up in Pittsburgh,
the Rust Belt of hard labor
with a deep love of community.
As children, we collected railroad spikes
from the tracks and we cut our shins
on random iron shards in **** hills.
Some of us were union middle-class
and others breathed the gray air of poverty.
That hardly mattered. As we stood atop
foothills that overlooked the city skyline,
soot embedded under our fingernails,
we lived as kings and queens
that oversaw the future.
-Ron Gavalik
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 2:18 PM UTC
I lived with my grandparents
as a boy before kindergarten.
My grandfather, a union boilermaker,
always left for the job early in the morning before I woke.
In the evenings, pap would stumble through
the back door, covered in soot, exhausted.
Sometimes I'd run up to him and hug his leg,
a sign of appreciation, true love.
Pap always laughed in delight at the affection
and then he’d pat my back in approval.
As I clung to pap’s ***** work pants,
the sharp smell of burnt metal filled my world.
It was the scent of the Rust Belt
that often hung in the air around the steel mills
and so many manufacturing centers.
That familiar smell reflected the gritty region,
its culture of hard day labor and heavy Sunday dinners,
the only way of life we understood.
Fifteen years later, sitting together
on pap’s back porch next to his stack of books,
his retirement library, the metallic scent was gone,
along with the steel mills and the rail yards.
‘I miss that smell,’ I said.
Pap kind of frowned and rolled his eyes
in that way when we hear the young and naive
speak without wisdom or experience.
‘I don’t,’ he said.
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 1:24 PM UTC
God peers down from towering heights
at the lawless land covered in the soot
of an anarchy so fine
Where dirt and dust
replace oceans of skin
Where smoke and ash
scoff at crystal skies
Where corpses in sheets
line asphalt roads
And musical men strike weary chords
in alleys wet with voiceless bards
Will death be proud to call broken names
while hungry vandals raze bleeding hills
Fear not this time
for there’s proof enough
that you will stand agape at the smoky forests
of concrete trees
in this flustering night
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 8:30 PM UTC
I'm the destroyer of your dreams.
I will sabotage us until
there is nothing left to cling to.
And I will stand over
our ashy remains,
Unable to contain my remorse,
even though I walk through
the pile left there
and leave bare footprints
in my wake
made from the soot of us.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 1:22 PM UTC
Cold sweats and hot flashes,
Soot covered eye lashes,
Being as the time passes,
Separating from the masses,
Stone cold with a warm heart,
Lifes a show just playing my part,
Sprinting towards dusk from the dark,
One of a kind on Noah's ark,
Keep a stash of motivation,
Coupled with determination,
Collect my thoughts like condensation,
Seeing hope in this sightless nation,
Opportunes I've had a few,
Bowed my head at the churches pew,
Its all apart of this fresh view,
Each days a blessing to start a new.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 7:55 PM UTC