"arsonists" poems
PROLOGUE
The Flame, aflicker, licks and flays,
illuming evening’s negligees
With braided curls she swirls and sways,
and flits and floats in light ballets
APOLOGUE
A Flame, to conquer creeping fog,
flew dancing towards a random log
Her flight perplexed a leery frog
beside a silent somber bog
The Flame, a ripple, all alone
alit on leaves where birds had flown
The aching twigs began to moan
A rising breeze began to groan
The Flame arrayed an ancient oak
with torrid tongues and veils of smoke
A ****** bailed, the dam had broke
The leery frog soon ceased to croak
The Flame uncoiled and lashed midair,
consuming crowns with utmost care
A crazed coyote fled her lair,
left in the lurch bewildered bear
The Flame, unfurled, went wild and grew,
enkindled cats and caribou
Remaining... not a residue,
as reeking vapors bade adieu
The Flame revealed her strength unshackled
Flora, fauna crisped and crackled
Fire Witches clucked and cackled
One more forest stripped, then hackled
EPILOGUE
The arsonists were well aware
the Flame would travel everywhere
The weirs are gone, the land is bare,
and soon you’ll find a city there
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 5:15 AM UTC
He thwack no metronome to kick oneself
Thwack his **** sucker
With his monolithic flaccid trunk rubber
Me and my Dalek doped
And my excrement unsweetened
Copulate in the open without my jockstrap
You shat encrusted to what you deflowered
So at arm’s length ****** from all that we excreted in the wind’s eye
And I bounce a bedevilled backwash
My incredibles are shafted
I’ll **** **** to Arab
We only jabbered hasta la vista amongst homophones
I croaked a hundredweight arsonists
You **** posterior to her
And I **** **** to…
I **** **** to myself
I ****** you powerfully
The body beautiful’s not enough to go round
You enjoy spanking and I wallow in *********
And ***** is like a tobacco teabag
And I’m a bijou **** coming the corsets in custody
We only jabbered hasta la vista amongst homophones
I croaked a hundredweight arsonists
You **** posterior to her
And I **** **** to…
Arab, Arab, Arab, Arab, Arab, Arab, Arab
I **** **** to…
I **** **** to…
We only jabbered hasta la vista amongst homophones
I croaked a hundredweight arsonists
You **** **** to her
And I **** **** to Arab
Mar 26, 2010
Mar 26, 2010 at 4:34 PM UTC
Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Hairline cracks are breaking through
the slough I'm about to shed.
Dry and dysfunctional
as the neuron sac in my skull.
I'll change my hat and change my ammo
honeysuckle artillery polished,
waiting in my drawer.
Sliding an empty coffee mug
back and forth along a counter
like a puck preparing for a slapshot.
Paper matches in colourful books
pressed between the pages
found leaves for child arsonists.
Takeout boxes filled with poems
are sold as artefacts
Don't be silly, poetry comes in plastic bags,
not styrofoam.
To keep ideas hot, wrap them in tinfoil.
But don't forget to leave a hole at the top for steam
or your fresh concepts will get soggy.
Equipped with tennis *****
spandex suits picket office blocks
standing on chairs and voicing nearly racist remarks
making health and safety inspectors nervous.
Out of control students
launch dictionaries out of third story windows,
donning 21st century masks.
I left my patience beside my keys, on the kitchen table.
Waiting in line for obsolete phone booths
as movie stars soundlessly mouth slang into a receiver.
Nearly responsible
nearly nine
nearly time for bed
I resolve again
that I’ll resolve more
but this time write it down.
Folding kamikaze paper planes
to hide behind park benches, fly into trees.
Let the sun fade the pencil crayon.
I can't run from this blasé gangrene that’s taken my toes.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
for Barton Smock
I
to see the flooding lake I crawl
through the thicket
I imagined
being the devil’s
garden
as a child
a lake
I first called
blue prison
but now
love
after swimming
lessons grandmother
funded
II
squatting arsonists occupy
the town’s church
during weeknights
I am one of four who knows
*When it burns
I'll steal the stoup*
III
I dream rarely and only in naps
waking,
I try restraining
fantasies of
faceless women
IV
rainstorms brake
the lake’s edges,
muddy the bankside flowers,
leave the canal sullied
forever
looking on, I
recall
generosity
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 2:44 PM UTC
When I was younger, I saw life
As white houses in neat rows
I loved the chrome, the steel, the metal dreams
The feel of sand and dirt and seams
There was only the meadow, the machine, and me
Now everydays an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines
I’m trying my best to be just like them-
A sad sirens song with red lipstick on
A ******* kicker, with a heroine heart
They say I’m dangerous because I don’t know what I want
They say I f@cked my way to the top.
Well we all mourn atop skyscrapers
As they clamor for judgment day
But I’m not afraid of dying
When the words of prophets are written on the subway walls
And the good crawl down to tenement halls
They sing for fame, liquor, love, scream give it to me
Because I thought I was sitting pretty on the throne of metal steel and chrome
Fools, I say, you do not know
That all I want now is to be left alone
So I sit up at night talking to the moon
Becoming so lost its like I never existed in the first place
Listening to the fabulous clockwork of heart and lungs
Listening to all heart’s dints and machinations
Made of metal and tears and chrome
I was lovely once, marred forever by a pair of (heart shaped glasses)
The foulmouthed flower of bohemia
Moonshine, take me to the stars tonight
While I’m not afraid to live fast and die young
Among the whispering , the champagne and stars
Angry yet, half in love
With death in the cooling twilight
Singing an arsonists lullabye with the workers in songs
For I stumbled into trouble, got my makeup on
A red lipstick sirens sad song
Of metal, steel, and chrome
Its real hard to be free when you are bought and sold
And only money makes you smile
They tell me I did it but we blew it
They say I’m too young to worry ‘bout burning out
So come on, let me bite the bullet now
I’m stuck in the landscape, the loveclub
I'll save you a seat next to me down below
This heights messing with my head
The ground calling to me
Like something out a dream
I’m scared to jump but terrified to stay
And this way I’ll never, feel no pain.
my boy builds coffins, don't ya know
of metal, steel, tears, and chrome
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
When we've turned to past
And all our memories turn
To vicious whirlwinds
: Untouchable
Aftermaths of aftermaths of flames,
Of which we were the arsonists--
Even with our senses impaired--
I'll still come back to you.
.
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 4:43 PM UTC
As a child, I drowned fireflies
in the river because I envisioned
them setting ablaze the forest like arsonists.
I thought if I strained my ears,
I could hear them sizzle.. like bacon on a grill
as they flopped about in the water.
But they kicked their legs, belly-up
in the cascades of currents; leaves,
their only life rafts, pulled them further down stream
their beacons flashed a silent SOS.
When their glow softened to a dull ochre,
I gathered the ones closest to shore,
tied strings about their tiny bodies,
and as though they were hanged men,
I sacrificed them to the trees.
One summer, I overheard
that Sadie's baby drowned in the river
while she ****** a married man
on the river's bank. I imagined
the baby's tiny body: arms flapping
like firefly wings as he gulped
water into his mouth; his immature lungs
expanding as he cried a silent alarm;
and his too-large blue eyes staring blankly
into the world of trout and bass below.
Alms to Nature.
Now, floating down stream, inner thoughts
bobbing, arms extended, I pay homage to the river:
O sacred deity.
I inhale and plunge backwards,
further into the cool recesses of its currents.
As bubbles rise, my breath escapes; my lungs panic.
Desperate Child.. Self-Sacrificing...
Yet the currents lift me; I surface unclaimed.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 7:23 AM UTC
(WE ARE!)
The space pioneers, planetary colliders seizing the heavens and placing them on earth, pop pop big bang brain busters that spin galaxies into milky ways and planets into candybars, the alien humanoid reflectors reflecting the sun back into Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
(WE ARE!)
The fire-starters, self-combustion, canvas arsonists. IGNITE! Light the streets on fire with your blood. Explode, implode, and explode again. Pilot to bombardier, we’re dropping bombs like Guernica.
(WE ARE!)
Wild creatures born out of black magic, black mamba, bear your ******* fangs! Be a predator! Find you’re prey, rip it’s ******* guts out, and paint something with them. Then scream, scream so loud that Munch himself would tell you to turn it down a notch.
(WE ARE!)
The creators, the ground shakers, the earth quakers, inventing ideas, gushing thought, and gushing blood because remember, you are alive! Alive with creativity, passion, and energy to create, because we are artists.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 7:46 PM UTC
7/23/2014
the plane rolls over the california mountains
we pass over homes,
and stores,
and jails
we pass over the bars,
where bitter old men go
to remind them of their sorrows
we pass the **********
where 20 year old men go
to feel like lions
we pass the cloudy river,
where a man sits fishing for not fish,
but love
we pass the jail,
where a ***** woman sits
and prays for heaven to take her
we pass the hills,
where couples go to ****
and die
we pass the roads,
full of insensitive men,
crying women,
vomiting kids,
and clueless elders
we pass the land
which has witnessed the
genocide of a people
we pass over a thousand murderers,
and a thousand molesters,
and a thousand arsonists,
and a thousand lunatics
we pass over a land
founded on the color of white
and *** we pass over this hell,
I look towards the man on my left
a 40 something year old
business man,
reading a mag,
drinking a coke,
and sipping up his cluelessness
then there are the people behind me
indian
2 women, and a child
a mother,
daughter,
and grandchild
who must know all too well
how much of a hell we're in,
but they do not bite their thumb
for maybe this is meant to be,
maybe there is no way to escape this,
maybe there is no way to fix this
yet,
I do bite my tongue at the world
I do bite my tongue at humanity,
at society,
at love,
at loneliness
yes,
I bite my tongue at people
but as we pass above the clouds,
and hell slowly vanishes
beneath a film of illusion,
my thoughts do vanish,
and I no longer
am reminded of hell
© 2014 Rembrin Hawke
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 2:39 AM UTC
The back of the fire truck says "call to report arsonists."
The 800 number is at the tips of my fingers.
But how can I report hands that sent flames licking up my thighs, kisses that left my lips scorched, smiles that ignited a roar deep in my stomach.
How can I report you for setting my world ablaze, my heart on fire...
And then leaving.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 5:20 PM UTC
The mid noon sky bleeds out; it bruises in flames.
Arsonists hold their gassers to my face.
In their grisly field of vision, I am a delectable
vapor, born to flit away.
Regard not the orange cones, nor the caution tapes:
these gates hold little significance to them.
(Then the other 'a-word' comes to mind: anarchists)
Prior to this, they had presented themselves
as chess pieces to fall in love with—little do they know,
I've an animus for them. As stupid as I may appear,
I know it's a game!
Unzipping out of incognito mode, they have unleashed
their razor blade. They whizz their wings.
Here they come, coming for me.
Here I go again: counting sheep,
blinking for one whole eternity.
Oh doctor! I'm in dire need of your vampiric syringe.
Swill my peaking adrenaline— at this rate, I'll go mad.
I shall never recuperate.
Mollify my entirety.
Teach me to rollick like angels do. I beg you.
Apr 18, 2021
Apr 18, 2021 at 5:30 PM UTC
Your reader quakes like a ready reactor
Steady burn an incalculable factor
On your mark, we approach the next chapter
A quiet pen, without ambition
Keeps each plan from happy fruition
And pressure mounts, some new type of fission
Carve yourself out a space in time
Mark it well so it’s easy to find
History don’t repeat, but rhymes:
Solicitudes concede to style
Somebody just filed suit for libel
One more murmur to add to the pile
To be a made man is to be man-made
And so you dull your colors down a shade
The arsonists took over the fire brigade
Step outside of your burning home
Pavement stand, dial your phone
Ask whomever if We are Rome
The receiver will no doubt laugh a little
That is, if she caught the preceding riddle
Somewhere Nero bows the fiddle
Tell me something, if you please
About the world pregnant virgins see
Oblivious to a state emergency
A noble fourth, our D’Artangan
Has the sharpened instinct of a jealous man
Oh, you know him? And you’re a fan?
He’s wants a girl who drinks whisky and gin
Musket holstered, what a sin
Somebody asks, “What shape’s he in?”
One assumes he’s kind of tame
A lion, yes, but with a shampooed mane
He don’t play ***** but he plays the game
Shoes on, button up, wipe your glasses
Time to shake up contented masses
Donde hay educación, no hay distinción de clases
Mar 23, 2010
Mar 23, 2010 at 4:34 PM UTC
Call me the great American Sweede
I’ve clearly got it all.
But son, sun, little miniature mouse
My gloves don’t even fit right so..
You’ve gotta search cellar house.
A merry rise builds off a muscled fall.
So watch and learn; success is failure.
Arsonists!
Flee this game of fetch at once,
Banished from his house while constructing persists,
My lord accepts all gifts, but, stolen shingles.
This guy can’t catch em at all ash, just a fresh flicker.
Ts’ whut happens win ya work dog units.
Wipe yo feet in De Spain!
But take them off in the next hemisphere.
Keep snopin around Charlie and get linked to the chain,
Burn through to leave that mark and
You’ll flee through the dark again.
Well it all comes down to this brother
Mclenden
Is there one looking glass in dark dwelling?
Or do your eyes always fix on another?
Make cinders of sleeping pieces and blow up the pawns.
Suckling from the breast of success doesn’t always bring one piece.
Go ahead of me dawn
Try to stop this one at the root
Or it’ll pursue you
Too.
Red skies coat brown guys with beauty in white light eyes.
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 11:20 PM UTC
Does memory deserve such a platter?
Cellophane instead of silver, but still
An impressive tower.
Such weight it bears—
Exhibit of blue curiosities
Resting on shoulders,
Original honeycombs.
The honeyeater feasts
On what has made a meal of me.
Grand rooms echo with silence.
Love turned to hate
So often without comment.
A history of broken hearts lies beneath
Street level. Away from sun’s glare
I buried them.
It is a tomb I walk in, tour guide
To myself. It is an ossuary hidden deep
Underground. It is the Catacombs of Paris.
Here moldering in the dark repose
A stack of secret skulls and bones—
Those gleeful arsonists.
In the end, even they succumbed
To the fires they set,
Burning down chapels without regret.
The city rumbles overhead, oblivious.
Everyone is absorbed with their own busyness.
No one pauses to wonder outside the still museum.
The cool façade belies the treasures hidden within.
They forget the history we share.
No visitor ascends the stair.
Inside, all is quiet.
The sole curator walks among the artifacts—
The rare objects, a Gordian knot,
The personas we once wore:
The naked emperor, the femme fatale,
The honeycunt.
Nov 15, 2019
Nov 15, 2019 at 8:30 PM UTC
When I was a child, I heard voices
Some would sing and some would scream
You soon find you have few choices
I learned the voices died with me
When I was a child I'd sit for hours
Staring into open flames
Something in it had a power
Could barely tear my eyes away
All you have is your fire
And the place you need to reach
Don't you ever tame your demons
But always keep them on a leash
When I was 16 my senses fooled me
Thought gasoline was on my clothes
I knew that something would always rule me
I knew this sin was mine alone
All you have is your fire
And the place you need to reach
Don't you ever tame your demons
But always keep them on a leash
When I was a man I thought it ended
Well I knew loves perfect ache
But my peace has always depended
On all the ashes in my way
All you have is your fire
And the place you need to reach
Don't you ever tame your demons
But always keep them on a leash.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 9:17 AM UTC
Let me try to explain
Why I'm obsessed with words like "shatter"
And the notion of something intangible breaking in half;
It is just the outpouring of all of my brokenness
Disguised as poetry.
I spent so much time watching the blood leave my body,
Thinking, "This is what it is to be humbled",
That I didn't realize the difference between my heart and a house fire.
It is simply what you are able to replace after everything
Has finished burning.
Lay back and let me show you all the different ways
That I have learned to say I'm sorry
While you blow your smoke into my mouth.
Don't throw hope away,
Gently set it on the floor and ask it politely
To take away your wallowing and self-inflicted misery.
Realize that expectations spell out heartache
In the strangest ways
And that I am still unlearning self destruction.
See that I am trying to wear my anger out,
To exhaust myself to the point of surrender for both of our sakes.
Let your pride crumble, let your knees give
Let's be something good for me to write about.
You can tell the next one that there was no hope for me,
Tell her that there is no redemption for arsonists who cry for their victims,
But remember that my intentions were good
And if you had bothered to kiss me you would've tasted the ashes
And you would've known better.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
This fire-trap, my home:
Elongated shoebox, or coffin
Awaiting the crematorium;
An arsonists dream
And a fire-fighter's nightmare;
Cluttered with books, boxes, plastics -
If it's flammable, it's crowding the hallway.
To seal the deal - and all who dwell within -
Security-conscious Landlord's
Barred all the windows, leaving one exit,
Presuming, when the conflagration comes,
That anyone can run the gauntlet
Of an infernal tunnel -
An exit, true, but not for this life.
Of course, the smoke alarm installed
Could've provided warning, had it not died
At the end of a cricket bat
Because of its sensitivity to toast.
And the Batsman, sleeping on the couch
In a drunken stupor, loaded
With cigarettes, lighters and matches,
And a penchant for late-night chips,
Could spark the trap that dooms us all.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 2:12 AM UTC
I am a revolutionary who lies in bed!
Leading the abused within my head,
I smelt their shackles into gleaming swords
The sort you see in dreams of course.
But why stop there? I am a philosopher
Taught the finest shadows in Plato’s cave,
A misanthrope who loves to post all the ways
I’d change the world if I were awake.
An artist who only writes self-deprecation
Instead of showing an ounce of creative dedication.
I am an arsonist who lights my own home
Just to keep warm and the night well shone
And with everything ablaze I always feel like I’m alone.
Perhaps, I should admit it could be, just maybe,
I hide the same problems everyone else has behind a fantasy
And instead I should accept I am just a boy lying in bed.
May 9, 2019
May 9, 2019 at 9:21 PM UTC
there was a tenderness reserved for me in her. like an eager extra setting at a table, still empty, as she yearned for my presence with dinner time inching impossibly closer. it was like she was playing house and she was smushing our two dolls together. she’d smile at me to pass her the salt and add a wink, because she can. building our own little sinkhole world in the middle of her parents’ dining room. i couldn’t hear her mother ask me what i do for a living.
her family would be delightfully curious of the kind of person who could hold their precious girl’s love and attention. i’d tell them who i was in a nutshell, but she giggled at what was purposefully left unsaid.
they knew the her before me, and the her after me was beaming light to land planes. before, they said, maybe she could just power a small town. the spark in her eyes was threatening to jump the slight curb of her waterline and light everything aflame. she would laugh as we tried to put it out and she’d pull me away running like accidental arsonists.
afterwards, hand in hand, we’d sit on her back patio and laugh a belly laugh. nothing was really funny, just life was electric and it made a sound.
Mar 2, 2022
Mar 2, 2022 at 10:29 PM UTC
A poet in love
is like an arsonist
With a match in his hand.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 7:38 AM UTC
The passion for writing heats the coal
igniting with every inspiration
luminous flames within the soul
will melt together a beautiful creation
Pieced of moments that you can't escape
extinguished love that made you fall
burned memories closed off with tape
a poem is the victim of it all
As embers smolder, waiting to ignite
by troubles in life that will inspire
a beautiful poem to rise in the night
set by arsonists, a poets fire.
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 1:23 PM UTC
I dream of the day when
even arsonists and architects can be friends
when anarchists and arbitrists reconcile their differences
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 11:21 PM UTC