"brazier" poems
Oh, will you ever return to me,
My wild first force, will you return
When the old madness comes to
Blacken in me and to burn
Slow in my brain like a slow fire
In a blackened brazier - dull
like a smear of blood,
Humid and hot evil, slow-sweltering
up in a flood!
Oh, will you not come back, my fierce song?
Jubilant and exultant, triumphing over
the huge wrong
of that slow fire of madness that feeds
on me - the slow mad blood
thick with its hate and evil, sweltering
up in its flood!
Oh! will you not purge it from me -
my wild lost flame?
Come and restore me, save me from the
intolerable shame
Of that huge eye that eats into my
Naked body constantly
And has no name,
Gazing upon me from the immense and
Cruel bareness of the sky
That leaves no mercy of concealment
That gives no promise of revealment
And that drives us on forever with its
lidless eye
Across a huge and houseless level of
a planetary vacancy
Oh, wild song and fury, fire and flame,
Lost magic of my youth return, defend
me from this shame!
And Oh! You golden vengeance of bright
song
Not cure but answer to earth's wrong
22.8k
wind like a south wind carrying a plane south
deposits him, beneficiary of a backwards current
on a branch with nothing companionable in sight -
no answer, no voice to answer, no voice,
no alarm, no succor - just an afternoon
and nothing pressing. No urgent business,
maybe only the rigors of trying to prevent
there being urgent business later.
He's not all smooth. A little feather
cowlicked on his narrow jaw, and I don't know
how he bathes, what he eats, what he wants,
who would want to eat him. I don't really understand
anything that is going on around me. But look,
I understand more than him:
the tree is dying.
Oak wilt blew in from Canada,
took a long time coming and finally cracked the veins
and this one is all bad on the inside, a meal of
corked-up flesh, big spongy patches and tainted roots
at the search.
(Amateur diagnosis. The tree is probably fine.)
There is a similarity neither tree nor bird know about.
Or his legs know it, and that message
is stuck somewhere. Or he's afraid.
The blighted oak is all fungus and refusal, and he:
his skeleton is spun from delicate copper.
If you open him up, he's like a penny -
pretty, and useless in this economy.
People and things always trying to get rid of him,
and he's listening because he knows it,
and he's singing because he knows it.
Open the tree up and the whole food chain comes down with it.
(Listen to your sweet flesh that wants to go on living.)
It's not a curse, not specifically:
just one fragile thing standing on another
but - count mercies -
too light to break it.
A basic brazier licking behind a splash of yellow, he chirrups.
His song comes from the throat.
His song is about something he saw once.
His song is unquestioned, muscle moving
without will.
His plumage is mostly air
And the tree is anchored in the ground
by the very thing that chokes it,
and we're all standing together:
me, tree, bird. At least until
I finish my sandwich, packing the greasy paper in
a rectangle, with unquestioned neatness,
and leave whistling.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
The snowflake is castellated cold,
Of chill crenellations and turnings narrow.
Court of pie-powders and gray-skied brazier smoke,
Of inner mazework dimmed to ****** holes,
Or the hooded machicolations from tower spire
Of oily darkness and arrowslits of Greek fire.
—
The snowflake is Medieval reliquary,
The frozen skull of rain and blood clear of sin,
Wind-captive with its prayer of quiet
On quietest lips, close to wine and sacrament.
Or the chapel and its waxen paramours
Of incorrupt body and candlelight upon the moors.
—
The snowflake is the mighty frozen spark,
Fire-forged and ironwrought,
Under the eye of Hephaestus,
Blacksmith of sorrow’s wind.
May 11, 2019
May 11, 2019 at 7:47 PM UTC
#
Floating brazier spews electric amber waves
as a setting sun radiates on the ceiling
a shadow of a ship coquettishly sways
while in the center charybdis begins swilling
another message, another missed call
another debt collector and his esurient talk
watch the ship begin to swirl, this scene so banal
amber feathered tawny eyed peacock
continues furtively to scroll her story and shoe shop
crowded room with a panel onstage
reality and fantasy evaporate and fall as a single raindrop
drown in the muck, don't know how to disengage
and to stay in the sway of fantasy.
#
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 9:41 AM UTC
In the orange cream dying sun's half light
swaddled by blankets wrapped in ***** clothes
I open my lips wanting your taste
eye to eye, mons ***** warm fragrance
To offer myself and soul over completely
When we were young did you ever think
we'd drown in the ocean of flesh between legs?
She smiled brightly, made noises
overjoyed much more than confused,
though that's not the story now, is it?
In an instant passion rises up with steam
gone again before I wipe the mirror and
brush my teeth, and once again I see
blackened debris, they're rotting out
from misspoke verbs
All that's sweet now is the imagining
of diabetic what once was
Two closed eyes reach back with a breathy sigh
withheld truths and well meant half lies,
cannot inspire lift again that left me,
but that doesn't stop the faithful
Has the tide this whole time been sending
waves of false hope, on which I'm floating?
Daydreaming, heating oil, she wants dinner,
and I hunger for satisfaction in new pictures
A hand for a finger, a tongue from both mouths
comforting by grabbing hungrily
until heads get thrown back, abs tighten
when pressed to relax, on the rack
stretched but both floating
Why does she want to drink my blood?
I don't ask just imbibe in return
Those days are long gone
Times when the worst thoughts could not undo
whatever flicker remains in the waning brazier's ember
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 7:43 AM UTC
You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
The very breath of it is ripe with cheer.
You're awful cold and ***** and a-cursin' of your lot;
You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot;
It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot:
God bless the man that first discovered Tea!
Since I came out to fight in France, which ain't the other day,
I think I've drunk enough to float a barge;
All kinds of fancy foreign dope, from caffy and doo lay,
To *** they serves you out before a charge.
In back rooms of estaminays I've gurgled pints of cham;
I've swilled down mugs of cider till I've felt a bloomin' dam;
But 'struth! they all ain't in it with the vintage of Assam:
God bless the man that first invented Tea!
I think them lazy lumps o' gods wot kips on asphodel
Swigs nectar that's a flavour of Oolong;
I only wish them sons o' guns a-grillin' down in 'ell
Could 'ave their daily ration of Suchong.
Hurrah! I'm off to battle, which is 'ell and 'eaven too;
And if I don't give some poor bloke a sexton's job to do,
To-night, by Fritz's campfire, won't I 'ave a gorgeous brew
(For fightin' mustn't interfere with Tea).
To-night we'll all be tellin' of the Boches that we slew,
As we drink the giddy victory in Tea.
2.2k
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
halfmade foundations and unfinished
drainage trenches and the spaced-out
circles of glaring light
marking streets that were to be
walking with you but so far from you,
and now alone in October's
first decision towards winter, so close to you--
my arms full of playful rebellious linen, a freighter
going down-river two blocks away, outward bound,
the green wolf-eyes of the Harborside Terminal
glittering on the Jersey shore,
and a train somewhere under ground bringing you towards me
to our new living-place from which we can see
a river and its traffic (the Hudson and the
hidden river, who can say which it is we see, we see
something of both. Or who can say
the crippled broom-vendor yesterday, who passed
just as we needed a new broom, was not
one of the Hidden Ones?)
Crates of fruit are unloading
across the street on the cobbles,
and a brazier flaring
to warm the men and burn trash. He wished us
luck when we bought the broom. But not luck
brought us here. By design
clean air and cold wind polish
the river lights, by design
we are to live now in a new place.
2.1k
5am wakes a blinding bright orange sun
Standing out against the pale grey sky.
Below, a cityscape of grey.
No cars and few people move this early.
Portland, like most of us, is having a foggy morning.
Two bodies fade to color on a rooftop.
Their crusty eyes
Crack to vibrant orange light,
Half expecting search helicopters
Or seagulls pecking at their limbs.
Praying, for ravens.
They only find each other.
A beach towel beneath them
Half a bottle of ***** beside them
Next to their backpack and undergarmets.
It almost resembles a prayer circle.
Kicked blanket at their feet,
Brazier overhead,
Belt and trinkets to the side.
Lord knows what they were summoning last night.
They sure as hell can't remember.
They only remember touch and smell,
Light lavender hips,
Big Bourbon chest,
Fingers tracing artwork in the dark
Admiring both
Memories and their permenance.
Unfortunately,
This wasn't permenant.
After they climb down it's
He to a hospital.
She to a husband and child.
The orange sun coo'd too early.
Just two hours of freedom
Before the goodbyes and consequences.
A short glimpse of another world.
Hoping for closure.
One step forward.
Three steps back.
When their bodies left the rooftop.
They held hands.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 2:02 PM UTC
Oh goddess
Let me kneel before thee
in supplication
Arms outstretched
the temple's forbidden smoke
burning in the brazier
is your perfume
How may I best worship thee?
In the summer we shall
paint your alabaster idol
Her lids be the color of bruised fruit
She is nameless in our tongue
but the people called the Greeks
name her Aphrodite
The farmers pray to you for wet summers
the masters beg you let them cling
the dregs plead for full bellies
They do not know you
They do not commune with you
in your temple
and yet they have the audacity to lament
when you turn your face from them
What brings the rain and corn
Is sacrifice and devotion
it is the doorway you enter through
But even that is meaningless
for your beauty is a mask
and you are not your face
or your idol
behind it
is your divine truth, secrets lie there
gods demand beauty in spirit
so if they be hideous to mortal sight
they will still be beautiful
to Aphrodite
So bring the oil
cloying to pillars our garlands
touch our forehead to the cold stone
and lift our spirits
to meet your painted own
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 1:47 PM UTC
It is forbidden to eat
To eat the fruit of love
In the garden of Human
Woman plucks it from the tree
The tree of ignorance
And gives it to Man
Man realizes they are clothed
And is embarresed he connot
Make her drop her brazier
They fall into love
And shall forever dwell
In paradise near to God
But
In paradise there groweth
Another strange fruit
And a strange snake
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 17, 2016 at 11:50 AM UTC
The red and blue berry's juice
stained her fingers and palms
with a purple mix and dripping lips
a sweet suckling on strawberry delight
as i crave fondly the lips that bite.
Again the tease so tediously forgotten,
not issued purposefully,
I ask a question out of turn,
then you face the window,
hand on elbow and hand on berry
berry to lip, rubbing stain
dripping stain down cheek then collarbone.
The sun seeps in to the tiled room,
orange with early-night sun-dropping light.
Fruit sweet on ******* perked
sticky juices staining brazier
shirt: black, no stain visible
yet holding stains in her memory.
summer nights where black was popular,
and so was kissing in the playground tubes.
After dark, when the sky turned deep blue,
she ran to find friends,
and found trouble instead.
Under a river's bridge,
with mud soaking flip flops and toes then ankles,
pushed against a rock and wall,
hip thrusting toward a desire for the action, but not the person
with lips stuck to hers in his own fit of lust,
denim cutting back pulses and immediate desires.
Trapped under the doomed wall of blue.
*** stains like blueberry stains
soak into denim or shirts
and will not be removed by detergent
or brain-washing.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 11:10 PM UTC
Psychotic break stole
Sound mind with a dream
Escaped from the hole
Left by heart's loss.
Paste and paper seams
Meant to give gloss
To facades distressed
Unravel in time
And a life, no less,
Is bound to come loose
When built on old lies.
Lost to reality
In a new delusion
I watched a poor fool,
Arms flapping wildly
Certain they were afire
Set to flame by the embers
Of that brazier
Lit a life time ago,
Left hidden in past
Still aglow,
Time's slow drip
Yet unable
To put the coals to rest.
From poets,
Madman learns,
Salving fresh burns
With quenching words,
Delighting in their
Cooling flow,
A newfound remedy
For a primal malady.
Babbling in swatches,
Speaking of things
That aren't there
But maybe were.
Then lighting more matches,
Lest the glow extinguish
Its delirious illusions
Ease smoldering anguish,
But leave the room too cold
Nov 14, 2009
Nov 14, 2009 at 4:21 PM UTC
Begging he falls to her gun,
He ran so long but now he's rung,
She creeps up their bone flower,
But he died in this burning tower,
Her eyes break through dam cement,
Metal gowns the skeletal present,
This kiss will drop the brazier,
Third degree suits together they peel,
He felt reaction to pins,
She cried during the operation,
He'll spin her to the ground,
She screams when she's straight anyhow.
The boy who ran to the subway,
He left his girl at their wake that day,
Take care till the day she leaves,
The last Fall leaf is gone in the Spring.
Aug 2, 2010
Aug 2, 2010 at 9:18 AM UTC
your constant, unending noise
i rebuke thee, 'fuck off!', beautiful mind strangled into crude curses
profane in nature,
rituals of execration in the dead of night and stillborn morning,
lit by a brazier of an ungodly hued red,
as you roar like thunder into delicate ears.
'please be quiet'
i petition to the wailing angels
stabbing at my eardrums with harpy claws,
rip my brain to shreds in echoes of outraged confusion
'tearin' out your hair like a banshee'
LEAVE ME ALONE
Nov 25, 2020
Nov 25, 2020 at 6:52 PM UTC
'Dutch Bakery' in purpled-neon, lights of the cross-street behind slink outward vis reflection projected unto Liquor Plus, Empire Theatre. Kind and married-typical common law couple with a fellow looking feel-low sits with pack atop his lap, tapping bottom, fidgeting leg. His partner whispers 'shall we go for coffee?' and he seems a little fizzled to respond with 'yes, ha ha, yes!'
They all look tired on the bus and I'm wired on the bus, a psychoactive passion for coffee in all forms the general complicit in my make-up brazier. The fuzzy-muffled image in the dark beyond the moving windows are like ground-level star-scapes hopping from eye-to-eye. No one here can see they're part of the greatest story ever told. Part Ten I etch unto a sketch upon a smartphone, I won't forget this moment and neither will the world. All of them I love, they love me back in some corrupted way. Won't admit the night is bright with kisses and arms up past the hemisphere.
Noting every quick fix is a way of ****** Brooklyn ****** 'MOI-da,' counting ways to be defunct. It's a long day every day, some days are handfuls and others vast oceans wherever. Spliced and shared between the masses, each mass correct of parts who think the masses are a giant individual with a fluctuating waistline depending on the era.
You can't help but come and ask yourself, 'whatever became of me? whatever began in hoping? whoever saw land in site?' before the histories rot in landfills, nothin more than sun-drenched wood-sheets, sketched-out symbols on a saw. and this, and this, and this
and this, my friends, is how the story told itself again
again
again
again
again.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
The heart is a warm brazier,
When full of love & happiness.
The heart is a cold freezer,
When full of hatred & sadness.
The heart is a happy place,
When full of loyalty & trust.
The heart is a sadder place,
When full of deceit & mistrust.
The heart is a hotter oven,
When full of hottest feelings.
The heart is a colder pole,
When full of negative emotions.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 1:09 AM UTC
she was a woman in every way:
petty, conniving, back-stabbing,
the sort of girl who cared when
somebody wore the same dress,
a person who rants endless and
then complains about those who
voice an opinion, she's had dozens
of men caught in her web (but has
only slept with two of them), she
reveals just enough skin to entice
but never enough to satisfy, she
is smart, she is desirable, and she
thrives on being needed
too many times I'd let myself
get involved with her
she'd spend weeks, winking
and nudging, sending every
signal that this time she was
going to bite back, and that's
why she enjoyed it even more
when she flipped the switch
and went cold forever (at least
until she decided to play with
me again)
she cares if she was the first
to hear that song, it matters
that she doesn't ever really
care, everyone else is worse
than her (in all the ways she
can think of), and time and
time again I've let her get
a hold of me, **** me dry,
and leave me for dead
she's a queen amongst spiders,
a rattlesnake in brazier, god of
hate and deception, ignorant
of her own ignorance, the center
of her own convoluted universe
she's wrong in nearly
every way
but, god,
she turns me on.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 8:22 PM UTC
Lift up to fire
keeping the brazier alight
Independence
I rack myself
Selfishness
I rack myself
Pride
I rack myself
I rend the insides of viscera
in the name of
Who finishes
my sentences
Bring back the heartache
to windy peaks to sing
he hasn't left for anywhere
but for the topside
into life
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
Each water drops
Marks the passing
Of a mind strengthened
By the knowledge
Of Death
If we were not born
To die
Life would
Not be life
The air would
Not taste as sweet
The water
As cool
The changing of seasons
As glorious
Who put me here?
Who controls these
Thoughts within
My brain?
Who am I in the world?
Who am I to the streets
With her battered ***** covered
Cobble stones? Shattered bottles
Lining the seams of her brazier...
Now that sight
Has shackled me
With their vices
And my body grows
Weaker as time passes
I show signs of an age
I feel has passed me by
The stinking dead were
Once frightfully alive
I see their faces
In their gravestones
A reflection that one day
Will be
All to
Familiar
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 4:06 AM UTC
Incense
& music
candle light
& stained glass
these
my religion
the church
of the senses
my only existence
lost
in the sweet jangle
of the swinging brazier
prayer
forming in the air
real & tangible
as a ghost
coiling &
uncoiling
like a snake
made of smoke
wrapping itself
around the choir's
sweet voices
love to see
the words
clothed
in smelly smoke
ascend
the perfumed air
building a stairway
of music
made suddenly
visible
reaching for a Heaven
even then
I knew
did not
exist
glorying only
in the make believe
the theatre
of the self.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
I’d always wanted a castle, so
I bought one in the Spring.
It wasn’t much of a castle,
Overgrown with everything,
Ivy covered the castle walls
There were trees on the battlements,
And bushes grew in the courtyard,
But I bought the place for cents.
They said it hadn’t been lived in since
The days of Charles the First,
And Cromwell’s troops had reduced it with
A mighty cannon burst.
The gatehouse lay in a ruin where
The Army stormed inside,
And hunted down the defenders there
Who, to a man, had died.
The women, hid in the kitchen there,
Eventually were caught,
The older ones had their throats cut,
But the young ones kept for sport,
And Lady May in her boudoir, she
Was seized by a Captain Clyne,
Who dragged her out by her hair, and said,
‘Not this one, she’ll be mine!’
He ripped and clawed at her bodice till
She was exposed to view,
She screamed that he was an animal,
‘I’ll never lie with you!’
He laughed and shackled her hands and feet
And he took his wicked will,
She sobbed to say he would have to pay
For the ****** blood he’d spilled.
‘I’ll hunt you down like the cur you are,
I will follow you through time,
My downline will seek yours to ****
For vengeance will be mine.’
He laughed, but fate, it had lain in wait
When a pile of shattered stones,
That hung so perilous by the gate
Had crushed his evil bones.
I took delight in the story when
I purchased this ancient pile,
And sat in the ancient boudoir where
I was pensive, for a while.
So this was the place that it happened,
Just above a flagstoned stair,
The **** of an ancient beauty, that
Had seeped in the walls in there.
It took some months to clean up the place
Ripping out each bush and tree,
Till Castle Krake was taking shape
And making a home for me.
I slept up there in the boudoir
During those long, cold winter nights,
With only a blazing brazier
And a sputtering torch for lights.
One night I heard a commotion, it
Was down by the Castle Keep,
A sound, a clashing of soldiers,
I woke from a shallow sleep.
And then was a woman sobbing,
It echoed within the walls,
For soon she screamed, ‘I will hunt you down,’
As I lay there, quite appalled.
Since then, there have been accidents
Of masonry falls and such,
The brazier set my bed alight
I escaped by just a touch,
It’s all to do with that Captain Clyne
And the curse of Lady May,
For Captain Clyne’s in my mother’s line
So I don’t feel safe today.
David Lewis Paget
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 9:51 PM UTC
dollar bill for whinnie
but save the rest for me
god you are so ******
in terms of company
toast me golden brown
don't burn me here
but dont turn it down
that is my greatest fear
hands made of leather
we keep together tight
and if we share sack'd feather
we'll make it through the night
maybe i'm a nando
and you are cheeky too
maybe i'm a rando
a fool i am for you
strike me like mike
stroke bow wows career
in the end he was like
a hippies brazier
words of our fathers
shooting like stars
if we were like others
we wouldn't go far
happiness in latex
depression in socks
swollen in ***
haplessness mocks
Jul 22, 2017
Jul 22, 2017 at 10:59 AM UTC
Academia took my soul and perversely undressed my mind into something sublime
Though this process can't repeat what it grew, to a rapacious savage that eclipses knowledge beyond this place we call time...
The King has arisen to the throne of Babel ready to reign with steadfast diligence and eloquent soliloquies...
Though having more degrees than a Russian protractor, wrought with angst of slaying the dragon of ***** filled seas, trumping the very ***** that actors hold with a certain pedigree...
Let my words hold you and console your soul that yearns for the feeling was once lost ascribed on a pamphlet of bedrock you call Imamate objectivity...
I'm back like Wayne's Brazier hook ready to cling to the cleavage of life, the breast of Mother Earth, the ****** of human essence, that milk of restoration...
Back to advance the front through side to side oceanic flows that puts the rhythm in your left thigh, and the blues on ya right....is THAT alright like F. Love say....
I say...what a momentous occasion...the intellectual liquidity that ebbs and flows through uncertainty...
The compass that was once West turns Eastward ready to rangel the stallions of the heartland, into the sunset, though my sun hasn't risen just yet...
Bartender, start my tab, I'm just getting started to pontificate confessions of a prolific "poetender"...
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 2:31 AM UTC
This thing called life.
The peak of it comes with loving, as if a young fleeting spirit took over.
Young love appears to be a construction of symmetrical bricks of multi-colours.
Maybe these bricks are meant to be sparkling diamonds, indestructible.
Tempting, inviting, expensive.
Perhaps, they're made of coal instead.
Smouldering on a barbecue.
Or possibly melting tarmac in a brazier.
Destined to fill fractured cracks.
When love breaks down again.
And then and only then a realisation dawns.
Nothing matters more than friendship.
Stashed the past love memories in the old bedside cabinet.
Get rid of the weight of regret round my neck.
An expanse of smile as a new age dawns.
The clocks roll backwards and you roll forward.
The autumn heads of falling sunflowers, seemingly nodding respect and goodbye to you.
Mourning you no more my only ever love.
(C) Livvi
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC