"candleflame" poems
we did what we could that night
and a supernal being is ashamed.
this is the drift of thought
in the vast ocean of gilded gold
frothing at the edge of rotund:
giving back a silenced enigma,
spewing the answer in an exhaust
of white rancid smoke
dharma burns plastered to cigarette.
burning and burning, afloat are the high-pouncing embers looking for fleeting shades and dagger-ambulations
of a shadow's swagger in tectonic soiree.
we did what we could that night.
like a flash of lightning at the back
of hoarded hills,
or say, something brutal and brash with
modern sensibilities we never jell —
we come not with softness or life
peering out of our eyes like little girls
serenaded by mad men in the eve of
forlorn nights. we did what we could
and some god cringes, winces away
like the erratic dance of candleflame.
the leviathan black spreads its parasol
and we are no strangers.
when our veraciousness starts to pierce
the veil, the populace should start
to worry of their trapped conditions.
we came here for something:
be it flesh, be it wisdom, be it plain inebriations — we will never flinch
at the squalor of tomorrow's sobering.
keep in mind, kaibigan.
it's all levitation and transcendence.
the darkness wept as the car
groans near the end of its immaterial life.
i flick the last cigarette into the grey-faced pavement.
all oceans drowned,
all shadows burgeoned,
all fires emerged plump,
this silent radio rivers
through the wave of this ephemerality,
the onomatopoeia of strangeness,
the thud
of the senseless head of metal
on the body
the clackety-clack
of hours thereafter!
ayeayeaye! the streets sing no mild
appendage. the solstice is lost
in the length and precision of all things.
bringing ourselves to the brink of absence,
our pallid selves set ablaze, emblazoning
the quick life of matchflame or rumble of
thunder — the steady phoenix of
that night! this is learning
to breathe again, o, what currents purloined in vicious swarth as we keep
this river flowing into our throats,
jamming our souls to compelling music.
remember kaibigan,
it's all levitation and transcendence.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 8:03 AM UTC
Shooting stars fell in a line and danced across my eyes in quick succession
though the sun outshone them all
and who ever worshiped the stars anyway?
Then like fireflies flew north before broke,
and from the south I saw the great Diamond City
reach out above a jungle of metal concrete plastic plastic with lights
Oh! lights
Pinprick window TV stream style smiles selling streets projecting the moon for
advertising space; the population rises
Factory stormclouds only irritate umbrella stand footsteps who pretend
to hate the rain
and outshines dim sunlight baptizing all in electric glory
Candleflame prisons of light that honk through haze through
rainy Monday 6:30AM’s
choke on each others breath until we have nothing left but CO2;
dandelions inherit the earth.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:51 PM UTC
i am going
into the limp dark
where silence recites
a brief candleflame
it is as if these cavernous impulses
rush back like children
whose heads are diadems
and you, their mother of spring’s masterful
hands neither went
nor came
to a dream
of
roses which
trudging kisses smite the loam,
giving them reckless meanings
yet all the same
in death
and in beginning, in these large minutes
your eyes contain
such light which all things darkled
are born anew
with timid
names
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 8:47 AM UTC
I, your oak tree ask, will you rest your painted wings on my branch?
I know I can't make your fleeting candleflame of a life last more than your few bright days, but for now rest upon my ancient bark and hear the lullaby of my leaves.
If rain should cause you to falter I'll bend my branches to shield you from the icy volley of raindrops.
As stars fade out in ink of night, I'll let a leaf fall from my bough and I hope it brings some comfort, in your last glimpses of this cruelly beautiful world.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 5:59 PM UTC
swift inset of love's Sanskrit,
a thorn of contestations.
make cadence this sensorial music.
centrifugally waiting bodies
to cross Earths.
a plethora of annulments.
lion-telling Sun singes through intersections of infinities:
we cannot wait to quash
the morning, the scent of guava leaves
and the cerement of flour on chicken.
earth-hewn mounds of meat pressed
against beholden kitchen clangor.
declension of memory past wood
and pillars of home. lattices of light
forerunning fingers, let down the curtain.
wind swings with maddened turbine,
afternoons high with deadlock.
of all that is not here, the force
reawakens a long-stumped ******
beating us back to edges ruthless
with angels entirely curved, singled-out,
wings clipped, dancing at the tip
of the candleflame.
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:16 PM UTC
Flickering gently, sending an enigma across every face,
Breeze of jasmine scent
bathing o'er us,
Candleflame, scarlet wonder,
source of life, source of warmth,
my relief, my first class solitude.
Dark shadow creatures
of the night, dancing glorious
dances of the ol' days,
them young, joyous girls.
Drums beating in time,
with my heart,
dancers jumping, spinning in time,
all in the shadows
of a single candleflame.
On a mournful dark night,
in the ghastly moonlight...
***
---What I was thinking when writing it:
I was thinking of African dancers and shadow plays and the eiry moonlight that reminds me of a candle. A completely different world of beauty and magic.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 5:05 PM UTC
in some paradoxes, space happens when two people
are close but not close enough.
after hours of demand, the presence occurs in many ways.
ubiquitous objects rend the veil of vicariousness.
there will be a repetition of days in here,
an assertive swing of dialogues to make ends appear as though
real and accurate.
in a brief candleflame of silence on a Vietnamese restaurant’s rooftop,
there will be noxious space conscious of: we are waning.
the way words leap from fences of teeth and venetian hairs.
air becomes a fat mound of fools in arcades and then in an instant,
it feels as if there is no more space left to move in, so they wear
each other’s skin and shed right after the ballast’s fall.
when done explaining a dream, sleep goes to belabor a bell.
soundless beside them, stiff as a body dreaming for itself.
in some paradoxes, what is imagined is most real.
there is suspicion that this lacks sentimentality. it is as carnal
and as commonplace as a hint of touch from a closed-in expanse.
that time at the market when you had your hands fretting
for shapes of perfect fruits, taking them in your careful hands
wary enough to not beat them senselessly to the pulp of their
glazed figures – the prices start to inflate and you wonder why
people still remained when at the first sign of difficulty
you start your furlough.
and also sauntering with maimed pace, that of autumn’s slow
reprieve, making your way past decrepit buildings,
you stop to take sunsets not because they’re marvelous,
but because you easily forget – and accept that there are
also things wet under the rain and not with tears.
when in another paradox, things point to their source
when doused with oblivion – starting to breathe on its own,
occupying space
leafing through days when something instantly said
rushes back searching for its holder,
to be given, stolen, or say,
left to die on its own –
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 8:18 AM UTC
You have a kind face.
People with kind faces always draw me in, like a candleflame draws a moth.
I have seen enough of beauty to know
That people with kind faces can immolate you
With the terrible force of their loveliness.
But... they are so very warm.
You do have
Such a kind face.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 10:47 PM UTC
I never have to check my phone and so I watch the candleflame dance
Fingertips grow numb to the soulless rocks glass
My cigarette whispers secrets to a callous night
And I think my cat died
I’d check but I can’t take another hit tonight
Unless it’s off a pipe
She’ll still be dead in the morning
Silence hangs about like an ugly hotel painting that’s been inexplicably bolted to the wall
If I were to put a **** out on my chest to punish every thought I had of you
I’d spell out your name
A thousand times
Mar 4, 2019
Mar 4, 2019 at 6:38 PM UTC