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allen currant Oct 2014
the bike wasn't
there it was
stolen last night

a caldera
then collapse

there was
no bike there
was no any
thing
Ari Feb 2010
there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia
My best Ginsberg impression.
Robert C Howard Dec 2013
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to slake its upward ******.

A single heedless step is enough
to breech that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless soul
who fails to guard his steps.

Fragile calderas also roil
buried in dark crevices of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in fiery pools
of self-consuming misery.

To dress and salve our wounded souls
we plant fertile gardens of reconciliation
with beauty, trust and charity
and kneel to gods of grace and solace.

But a despot’s practiced eye
knows how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot,
and reason has no district.

Friends and siblings - my flesh and kin,
this world is ours to lose or save
so let us seal well our Sacred Calderas
from bitter foes that stalk us from within.

July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
Tara Marie Sep 2014
Crater filled with endless dust
Full of nothing, full of rust,
Never ending, but it must,
Deeper down and down.

Leaving grass too far behind,
Somewhere no one else can find,
The ones who crave loneliness pine,
for the remoteness of this place.

Why is it always dark?
Not a sun to set or the quickest spark?
Only lonely--a treeless park,
A grave for distant sunlight.

Making happy seem not right.
Celebrate a starless night.
In cherished darkness, the cold can bite,
in the depths of this caldera.

Maybe something happened there,
A distant fight, an unknown lair,
incomplete and crumbled--the pair.
And waiting for some sun.

But for now let's ignore this awful place,
And forget we ever saw a trace.
An unsolved mystery, a closed case.
We'll erase the crater who lies.
Sarah Apr 2015
I had a dream
in French
and black and
white

a dream where you
were in America
en fin
and I was high on
Crater Lake

I had a dream
where your skin
survived
it did survive
the coldest blow
the ash
the snow
in the Caldera's dance

where sheets
of violet
embers and
clothes
hanging on the line
blew in rhythm
to my French
two-step
and my ombre
shades of time

I had a dream that you
were here
and that you
never died.
Max Hale Feb 2010
Distant island shapes beguiling
Floating ghosts of far off land
Appear sentinel as we lay
Hot and sunbathed on the sand.

Scorching beach has tricked our minds
Ever beckoning cool seas flow
Finely placed as time stands still
Myths of people long ago

Heat above the deep caldera
Yet at water’s edge a breeze
Every wave a stroke of calmness
Drags the black sand out with ease

Pushing, combing lava rock
Once a liquid burning hot
Hearts massaged by the tender noise
Deep sighs as the day burns on

Windy gusts caress unclad torsos
Smiling we hold hands out to catch
Throwing our heads back with the pleasure
Letting our warm brown frames collapse

Lazy resting towels on bodies
Sunbed dreaming, time for lunch
Decisions on the midday menu
A carafe of red or white, too much!

Later when the sun’s behind us
Deserted beaches for the night
Couples then prepare for evening
Soon tavernas come alight

Poolside dwelling welcomes back
Two weary souls from day outside
Scorching sun takes all about us
Thanks for love where we abide

Since we came and soaked our souls
In this perfect atmosphere
Love has blossomed even further
All is wonderful never fear

Patio evenings lying out
Herb aroma fills the nose
Drifting in and out of sleepy
Eyes feel heavy in repose

Cool wet noses brush our legs
Warm fur strokes a silken pass
Feline friends have come to visit
Glad that we are home at last

Nervous ******* lying still
Mewing loudly all surpassed
Two so gentle but true survivors
Bright eyes hiding traumas past

How lovely to have given respite
As more and more attached we grew
Warm and tender stroking softly
Alongside us as if they knew
Robert C Howard Oct 2018
Above the caldera at Yellowstone,
a brittle soil-rock crust
caps a lake of liquid fire
with only fumaroles and roiling geysers
to stay its upward ******.

One errant step is all it takes
to breach that mantle's fragile seal -
spelling death by fire
to any hapless wanderer
who fails to guard his path.

Fragile calderas also roil
buried in darkest hollows of our psyches -
brewed of failures, slights and fears
dissolved in molten pools
of self-consuming misery.

To dress and salve our wounds
we sow gardens of reconciliation within
with beauty, trust and reason
and bow to gods of grace and solace.

But a despot’s studied eye
knows just how to tap our fragile crusts,
releasing acrid lava flows
from pools where fear and rage reign hot
and reason has no district.

Sisters and brothers of our flesh I pray
we find a holy and transforming alchemy
to convert our heat to light
and shield our sacred calderas
from enemies that stalk us from within.

July, 2006, revised December, 2014, 2015 and 2018
Robert Charles Howard
I decided to repost this poem because after scores of revisions over the years every stanza is substantially different than it was when I first wrote it in 2006.  Hopefully after 12 years, I've got it figured out.
Wanderer Mar 2015
I am shattered lands
Tectonic plates bucking against the heated pressure
Of each word you utter
Vesuvius verses Pompeii
With gypsy tips I've got these tricks
Leaving you breathless
Panting after in great belching strides
The slightest wave of my hand
Your a step away from erupting
Steaming up my control panel
Moisture slicking the pathways between here...and here.
Blow your top honey
I've got a village for you to cover
Kaz Arat Jan 2015
I'm really sick.
Like ***** is going to come out of my mouth--
an eruption of **** from my ears is due.
I've laid too long dormant
and one by one the hot spots of my petty jealousy,
     indignation, and
     mistrust are at boiling points:
The Ring of Fire, they call it.
Yellowstone
I'm the ******* Yellowstone caldera.
The great rim,
****** up and blister scarred,
knock-kneed from falling out of bed in nightmares,
weird from the predisposition to volcanic shittiness
      (not in a romantic way)
but none the less active,
         or reactive.

This vexation is as old as grinding plates.
This repulsion is as old as the poisoning of Aristotle

My head is the Spartan scythe
because I'm a new sign in an old world.
I use old signs to poison this newly dug well between us
But not well can I keep this message
        banner
        ******* billboard to myself.
So let me just wrap the code from ear to ear,
in plain text where you can see
the cypher: **** your red dress.

You see,
those blisters are the gravity between White Dwarves
pulling at skin, and earth, and ending thrown halfway across the universe.
I knew I'd seen you before,
there at the edge of the Oort Cloud
where we tell people we just met:
I stopped eating
I was hurt once
I was ugly too
and no one was really listening.
You and the rest of our red dresses meant too little.

But still then why do you whine over the hungry, and hurt, and ugly
and spit in my face for being there at the Edge,
and for loving the thrill in listlessness,
the passion in mundanity?
And that ******* about the shallowness of victims?

You didn’t learn a thing
traveling and trusting and falling out of beds.
Your drunken honesty is your sober lack of layers.
This isn’t a far reach of space,
your torn dress and cork heels won't work here.
Don’t bring that littleness here,
you're the only one not really listening now.
A revision
a fiery lava pool is my heart
a lake of incandescence    bubbling
over my body    melting me to raw emotion
burying me in an *******    pyroclastic flow of feelings

Love has taken on meaning
has produced Life
messy     viscous    muddy    hot
writhing
Life
has given new depth to my volcanic soul
and driven temperatures
to icy    bottomless    chasms

under which is my fire    my heart’s hearth

a legion of ghosts crawls over my rim
an infantry of past experiences to
remind my heart
of a once-fought war on the field of my soul
on the Plains of Love
in the chapel of my body

my heart pours its lavic gift over
my rim
leaving nothing of them to recall
or bring forward
or sound retreat
for
they are not memories anymore
they are echoes of echoes of echoes    disappeared
neither inchoate nor fully realized
gone


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Natalie Wood Jan 2014
I bet your mouth tastes of stars.

I bet you have supernova sized explosions hidden behind your teeth
and I bet that comets trail through your hand
and leap off the edge of infinity,
careening into nothing.

I bet your skin looks of a galaxy.

I bet it is marred by shattered constellations
and I bet that in between the universes in your eyes
sits an empty thought,
awakening for no one.

I bet your hair is made of braided planetary orbits.

I bet you tie it back with black holes of misinformation
and I bet that it blasts open your mouth like a caldera
a galactic cluster of imaginary time,
shooting off bits of malice and meteorite.


You where born in the heavens,
so allow me to crack open your bones
and let satellites spill upon my palms.
ANH Jul 2013
The incandescent Sun
is eating itself alive

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The helium will compact
to a carbon red giant's core

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The Earth's heat is depleted
by geothermal extraction

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The geysers are drying up
and the pressure sinks in subsidence

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The permafrost decomposes
and prehistoric methane effervesces

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The Yellowstone caldera hisses
plumes of taunting toxic gases

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The sea-floor volcanoes
purge their way to the surface

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The aurora lights the sky
as solar wind ravages the magnetosphere

They said it's too small to matter
too small to matter
Em Glass Sep 2015
The moon is content
to believe without
understanding why
she was placed where she
flies, orbiting space
and looking at time.

But the earth wants to know.

It wants to accuse
whoever carved out
its calderas,
and at every aphelion
the moon finds it harder
to move, like she can’t drag
herself back through the blues
of skies one more time.
The tether that holds
them together tears
her apart.

The moon doesn’t get
dizzy, but earth thinks
it’s spinning too fast,
sketches up the sky,
an engineered map of whys,
of stars connected
by thin pencil lines,
she thinks in miracles while it
thinks in margins of error,
equations, exponents.

On nights when she glows
green, the moon envies those pairs
who favor the power of two

because she squints and sees
the blueshift in earth’s eyes
as it crashes closer,
time spills out behind her,
space suffocates
between them, closer,
perihelion come,
and she blinks and sees
earth’s caldera eyes
raised to nothing.
Perig3e Jan 2012
The improbability of you,
Shooting star,
Birthed in the caldera
Of a winged widget
Ejecting celestial dust,
Now your dance floor
Is the Universe.
And you dance and dance
to the delight of your seasons,
Inspiring your myriad friends.
Alex Salazar Nov 2019
Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.
ineffable contours, that cannot be tamed with a wordy depiction.
Like water running through my fingers,
Ephemeral, and leaving me to linger.
Caldera, my steaming  desire.
Instantiates a spy, that is ready to be set on fire.

Daughter of eve,
Carousel of dreams
You’ve drowned my angels
And left me  to die in a reverie.
Butch Decatoria Feb 2017
FRENCH KISS
Such buttery lips
Sweet cream-silks, wrapping our tongues,
Je patisserie.


Le VALENTINE
Red rose and sweet prose
Cyrano DeBergerac's
Moonlit balconies.


DESIRE
Burning in goose flesh
Yearnings with caldera-thirst
Your kiss is like rain.


DEBONAIR
Dean in gabled suits
Eloquent body, jazz-smooth
Sweeps her off her feet.


METEOR SHOWER
Friday night space lights
As we caress the hours
Streaks across the sky


ORIGAMI
The creases of us:
Tales of dragons and white ships
Neatly folded sheets.


VEGAS WEDDING
Romance thru sun roofs
"Hallelujah" honeymoons
Marriage number two.


BON VOYAGE
Like wide sails that cup
The high winds of this marriage
I'm at Love's mercy.


NAPE
*Warm whispers my lips
Down smooth meadows of your neck,
Sweet familiar bed.
Patricia Drake Feb 2013
As he fell into autumn
He marvelled
And smiled
Despite his fate
Her colours so stong
And her powers unreal
His hands
Still not cooled
After the fire he felt
When he reached out
To touch her hair
Under a perfect blue sky
He fell
And with the colours he faded
Into different shades
Of darkness

Volcano

As the pressure builds below
With rising levels of acidity
The waters around us show signs
Of impending doom
There are cracks at times
Sulphoric fumes too
But no one cares
as long as the plaster holds.
In time the magma builds
Like a boil the mantle explodes
In a Plinian eruption
Of petrifying pyroclastics
And lava flows
Raging and ravishing
Fertile lands
With misery and despair in its wake
As it calms down
And the lava cools
The reconstruction begins
Around the old mantle
The surface crusts again
Like a wound healing
But marked
Scarred
And the pressure builds once more
Another eruption is imminent
The mantle builds every time
Until it collapses
Into a magnificent caldera
The imploded chamber
Of an emptied magma chamber
Sean McCarthy Oct 2014
A recently revived drowning victim
I'm judging picture books by their centerfold
All the wit in the world won't
save me now
and even though I've made it
This far
I'm still too afraid
to keep ******* through the pages.
You should see
All of my paper cut scars

This is a courtesy call
I hope to hear you
Say you're sorry
and just because
I saw you dancing along the wall
doesn't mean we're friends
In fact
quite the reverse.
You're a man
And I'm ******* insane

There's no way for you to know
how much I've hated
You
I guess it's been years since we talked
So that's my fault.
Retraced steps lead me
to the lip of the pool
Cholera never looked
like my scene
But I feel your genes spreading

Like Jesus and Peter
you'll pass me down this legacy
of hatred, strife and
Pestilence. My god.
I bind my books
into your back
and read you bedtime stories
each period forming a
caldera in your skin.
I touch it.

And this tastes so good
Almost like another life
if I can stay here forever
you may never find me again.
Don't you see how beautiful it is?
I'm not afraid of you anymore.
I think I realized
I just know you
Too ******* well
it's like looking in a mirror
decompoetry Oct 2010
Pressure between your shoulders,
shaping your spine; shadowing the blind,
stress relief through ancient grief,
tho’ less wise you’ll still criticize
the actions of your reflections
painted in the mirrors leaking nightmares,

And in the end you’ll still evaluate
only when things aren’t great,
while I’ll continue to *******
on these precious tectonic plates,
painting over the old world
with new shades of chaos.

We’ll ***** and moan until we all grow old
and increase the fire until someone puts it out,
and yet we’ll never know what it was all about.

The answer buried under the aged wonder
flowing beneath my chambers,
never to be uncovered
until everyone is in the pit,
skeletal ash, so delicately rash,
now consequences return
as the careless burn.

and we are our own ****** hot spots,
erupting over your own ****** thoughts,
mixing lava where it doesn’t belong,
and ******* your world into a massive batholith,
a dried chunk of a once damp heart,
now contemplate how to complicate
and begin again from the start,
until the pressure of it all relapses
and from within a fatal collapse,
Poetic caldera relinquishing the day,
and all that you know will be broken,
and all that you don’t, you won’t.
Perig3e Jan 2012
The improbability of you,
Shooting star,
Birthed in the caldera
Of a winged widget
Ejecting celestial dust,
Now your dance floor
Is the Universe.
And you dance and dance
to the delight of your seasons,
Inspiring your myriad friends.
Perig3e Jan 2012
The improbability of you,
Shooting star,
Birthed in the caldera
Of a winged widget
Ejecting celestial dust,
Now your dance floor
Is the Universe.
And you dance and dance
to the delight of your seasons,
Inspiring your myriad friends.
Leydis Jun 2017
¿Qué te digo, que te escribo?
¿Cómo poner en verso este sentimiento que por ti siento?
¿Qué poeta invoco para que me ayude a componerte las más bellas letras?
Una poesía que contenga consonantes que te lleguen al alma!
¿Cómo se describe lo indescriptible?
¿Lo que no tiene historia, lo que nunca ha existido?
¿Cómo describo tus besos si nunca en ellos me he perdido?
¿Cómo describo que el toque de tus manos incinera las partes más frías de mí?
¿Cómo hablo de la libertad de tu amor si estoy presa en él?
¿Cómo dirijo la pluma, con que tinta la escribo?
¡Te he conjugado verbos con más letras que el alfabeto chino!

Como decirte que los dioses de la antigua Grecia
se han unido en Santorini, solo para demandarle al Mar Egeo,
que te detengas a escuchar las olas de mi mar que anhelan atarse a tu destino.
Que así como ese maremoto provoco la erupción de su caldera,
tú por ende, uses mis caderas para que fluya esta erupción ardiente en tu entrega.

¿Qué serenata te ofrezco si donde vivo no habitan ruiseñores?
Más tengo una inmensa necesidad de cantarte, de decirte con la melodía de mis besos;
que te quiero,
que me enterneces,
que me apeteces,
que este amor por ti cada vez más crece.

Que eres el agua que hidrata mi ser.
La pasión realizada en hombre.
El hombre que florece mi esperanza en el amor.
Que tu sonrisa es igual a la sensación del ciego que ve por primera vez-irreal.
Que el sonido de tu voz, es entender por qué Dios creo el mundo.
Que el brillo de tus ojos, traspaso las venas de mis miedos y por siempre las neutralizo.

¿Dime, que te digo?
¿Dime, como te lo escribo?
¿Dime, como te conquisto?
¿Dime, como te miro?

¿Cuál poeta invoco para que me ayude a escribirte la mejor poesía?

¡Si tú eres la mejor poesía!!!!!

LeydisProse
5/22/2017
https://m.facebook.com/LeydisProse/
Image may contain: one or more people
Aaron D Sep 2012
Anxiety fills in
When Nothing is happening
Like water filling a caldera
Years after the mountain disintegrated
in an explosion of fire and ash
and they told stories about it
beside the blue deep lake
It will happen again
they say in whispers,
Soon
John F McCullagh Aug 2014
The Crust of the Earth Ruptured in a caldera.
The Sun blotted out by the ash and ejecta.
Dark lay the land in that perilous time.
way back before history had written a line.

The carnage terrific, there were deaths beyond count
When Starvation set in we saw casualties mount.
We came so close then to the end of our race.
There were ten thousand humans left on Earth's face.

These ten thousand survivors, the sad Remanent left
were fruitful and multiplied, at least that's a good guess.
At last count we numbered seven Billions or more.
We have plundered the land and polluted the shore.

I wonder when Yellowstone will rumble again.
It will blot out the stars and will threaten World's end.
But if some should survive and start over again
for the sake of Our Father please this time stay friends.
640,000 year ago the Yellowstone Caldera, a super volcano, nearly ended the human race.  Geneticists say that there were perhaps 10,000 survivors.
It is this small genetic pool from which we spring that makes us all so many cousins.    Sadly many in the family fail to get along with each other.
clxrion Nov 2016
Two is company, three's a crowd
We halt the steep hike, me, myself and I
Solace seekers stuck with each other
Lonely yet overwhelmed and we don't know why
Campfire is kindled; we gather around
Rubbing numb hands and flexing sore toes
Nobody speaks as we stare at the ground
With its half-frozen mud and crackling dead leaves

The flickering embers hurl our shadows
Like blood spatters against the clouds
My marionette falls as its strings are sliced
Cosmic ****** painted on the dying sky
Our riddling commences on the next thunderclap
I find myself asking what it all means to me
Gulping the heady steam of trepidation
Standing on the precipice of the caldera of dreams
How can we still hope when we remain unfathomable to ourselves?
Jonny Angel Apr 2014
I miss walking
between the crags,
sitting high on the moraine
& feeling the rush of icy-wind
kissing me from the blue-crevasse.

I miss counting the stars
& being able to touch them,
hearing the rumbling sound
of an avalanche echo off
the big valley walls.

I miss the smell of sulphur
blowing up from
the depths
of a living-caldera
& the touch of penintentes
rising from the glacier,
evergreens in winter.

For in those moments,
you really feel alive
& it's not electronic,
it's real nature.
Andrew T Hannah Mar 2014
I am the moon and the tides.
I am the storm, the battered sea,
raging, raging, until the waters whirl,
deliquesce to droplets, dried in torrid heat…


I am creatures reposed to salty bones,
and I am the undulating desert gorging on them.
I am the Aeolian winds grinding mountains to sand,
blowing away my own dust to bare rock.


I am the tremors, unrelenting shockwaves, collapsing cliffs.
I am the molten lava flows, undermining tectonics.
Beyond the caldera, the release withheld…
The intensity is high, I bleed diamonds…  


Shear and tensile cracks throughout,
upwards and downwards;
unpeeling the mantle, liquid substrata, shaken core.
This world is crumbling... I am crumbling.


I am the imploding planet, spinning off axis,
out of orbit planetary collisions, the space flak.
I am the unfathomable supernova, cluster detonation
white nuclear, radioactive fusion.


I am the fading neutron stars, the star dust...


...the black hole.


v   o   i   d
Patrick McCombs Oct 2013
You had something written all over your face
But I couldn't break the code
Something was out of place
But it barely showed
Like a carbon monoxide leak
Like a caldera ready to blow
Its there in the words you speak
Subtle undertones that only I know
Its always there, but it avoids definition
Maybe its not something, but a void
that haunts you like an apparition
And everything near it gets destroyed
Your collapsing slowly from the inside
And its a battle only you can fight
But I can help, I'll stand by your side
At the end of darkness there is always light
brooke Apr 2017
I've always fallen in love in autumn
always to fall apart early spring--
call me deciduous, the abscission just happens,
I've considered my winter coats, my shields,
the neat places I've tucked myself away

were we to overwinter?
to hibernate until further notice?
the titles were frightening, impending and
ominous, each one a textbook on subjects
we had no knowledge of, dark leatherback novels
featuring versions of ourselves we never meant
to be or never knew we could --

wrapped in sleeping bags and white down duvets
best during the winter becase we were both
raging fires, flames licking at eachothers doors
stopping short of our naked toes, put out by the
here and there snow, but sometimes
we were embers, pulsing stones of coal
settling, wishing, waiting, kissing wounds
breathing secrets over bruises--

but migration comes suddenly,
i've been in and out dormant for years
a sputtering volcano rumbling and groaning--

were we to overwinter?
I lost the dream woke with a start,
the caldera gave way and sunk in
terrified I'd take you with,
but travelers don't pause for eruptions
or make their way through magma --

and volcanos don't plead
   for them to
       stay
       were we to    
                overwinter?
(c) Brooke Otto 2017

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