"chars" poems
sometimes she daydreams about life the way i do about death. it's ironic, i know: black and white aren't meant to be grey and the rumbling hum of expletives digging into mauve lips pass through like desaturated light to translucent statures. it makes everything seem sweeter than it looks. she thinks the ache feels lukewarm, just like those half-hearted smiles she gives out like presents on a holiday, and she may be right. pain is not cold, it covers your entire heart with microwaved fingers, leaving burn marks that leave chars and ashes. snaps the purple heartstrings and clumsily tries to mend it.
(i love you because you're corporeal, she murmurs, you keep me sane)
she's spider-webbed, sung gossamer and silk while her bar lines drip with ink. and she seems moonstruck—because of me she says and blooms throughout my epiphanies. fancies herself a ghost, a wisp, something ethereal that lingers on my lips like a kiss. and she lingers, oh she does. toppling from the skies and collapsing into my rib-cage, she stays, blushing rose-like and thriving. velvet and constellations of blood clots patter against her skin. it blooms like she blooms, a paint splattered canvas meant for all to see.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 2:50 AM UTC
Year after year
purity of fire
is challenged by evil,
appeased with offerings
A full moon looks on
as winds stoke embers,
flare flames
to a flickering dance
Right in the center
of crimson blaze
sits Holika,
Prahlad in her lap -
her arms a circle of heat
White sparks fly from her hair,
eyes smolder in fury;
her mouth ***** in air,
engulfs rice and wheat
Wood chars,
coconuts splinter,
flowers singe
smearing earth with ash.
Year after year
faith survives.
Holika burns to death.
By Unknown
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 7:47 PM UTC
I am at the fire as I would likely be, come the chill
hours of inactivity, having gathered up the dead
detritus from the yard and put to match some old
wood rested on it. The lifeless pile took flame
with greed, as if surprised by need of it,
and gratefully gave itself to be consumed by fire.
For a time the world is all ablaze, all red
and yellow hot upon my face, flush with pregnant
sparks giving birth to ever greater iterations of fire.
Then I think let it all burn, all that is useless;
let it burn, all that is cast off and idle; in my mind
an eternal flame, even as the wood before my eyes
melts to ash and climbs to heaven on a pillar
of smoke. Ash settles down to earth with me,
ash in the air darting through shadows, bitter
on the tongue, gray in the hair. The universe
is cold; the space between the stars blank.
The bodies of the universe are all ash.
As long as there is flame I stay with it. I inch
closer as the cold elbows in, jealous of my place.
I stir. Chars catch a breath and come to light,
soon fading, embers weary of their work, blinking
heavy eyed, nodding off to sleep. When at length
all that can burn has burned, refined to its last
remains, glowing scarlet crystal, intensity wanting fuel
denied, I leave it to its vultures, satisfied
all becomes at last what does endure.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 11:10 PM UTC
I.
There lies the vast longing to be engulfed in suspension,
to lose one’s orientation in search of the true unknown
for salt waves that lick the skin clean and blunt
the sleek lines of the face.
It takes a while to ebb a whiteness into the hardness of time.
II.
It is said that in flames,
the body forgets it is vertical on a stake
and the head is anywhere but above the shoulders;
that in cleansing with fire the skin turns red
then, in an instant, chars to black.
III.
They say there are two ways to cleanse oneself:
while white is the color of salt-dried purity,
black is the color of fiery clean.
In the end, after the fire brittles our bones,
all we throw into the sea is gray dust.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
In these moments she shatters her past like glass. Today she is miles from her visions of grandeur and grandmas home cooking. But, beneath the shade of her plastic sun, she chars her soul with self-doubt. Some would say she is more honest now, truer than she ever was before.
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 8:01 PM UTC
bubbling, boiling, the ****** acid sizzles
my insides like water hissing as it turns to steam
helpless against the fury of a forest fire
it chars my throat,
tears springing to my eyes
i can taste the salt on my face
but all i see is red
mirthless laughter echoes
the way black coal smoke billows
from the smoke stacks of my
lungs
the searing heat of hatred
irritates the skin on my wrists
i scratch and scratch and scratch
until the skin is raw
until the skin is broken
until the skin hangs off the bone
i feel nothing but the rage
giving me strength
giving me focus
giving me calm
the lava rises, shrieking,
into my eyes,
pouring from my ears and nostrils,
seethes between my clenched teeth and sealed lips
my breathing
even, deep,
matches the rumble of the cracking earth
and from its core more fire comes
evaporating the tears on my cheeks
the blood on my arms
the rain from the very sky
Aug 29, 2021
Aug 29, 2021 at 3:42 PM UTC
This soul is covered in ash left behind
from those who've burned me with their selfish lies
with matches in hand and flawed regrets they stand
as they watch the heat that chars my bones
and melts away the last heart-string I own.
No going back, they can't change this obscenity
they made their choice when they walked away,
my love was in their hands,
the love that encompassed my entire being,
now I am forced to give what's left to the dark,
the dark I've been forever running from,
the death I will now gladly welcome.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 11:25 PM UTC
Alcohol,
drugs,
love.
They are choices
we make
that break us apart.
We use them to fill
the voids in our heart,
to cover the scars
we've had since the start.
It's a petty game
that we play,
even when we're smart.
We pour kerosene on fire,
then cry when it starts
burning holes in our life,
and chars up our hearts.
We love that it burns.
We love that it hurts.
It's never enough,
they always play their part.
We love them more,
than we love our own hearts.
We can't get enough
of ripping ourselves apart.
We gaze in the mirror
to see our black hearts,
and smile at the feeling
that pain makes us art.
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 4:19 PM UTC
yes to the mess
yes to the lessons
yes to the illusions
cracking
yes to me
yes to being
yes to releasing
past ashes
yes to living
again
yes to showing up broken
yes to rising in blue and black
yes to bandaging crimson scar-chars
yes to
healing
yes to love
in infinite resurrections
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 8:31 PM UTC
spirits of the gray concrete lives lost
in the days that never existed
i hope they dont find me
but my breath is louder than my heartbeat
keeping still in the shadows of
my own hard shell
don’t tell him im here
be silent and immobile
the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do
is let go of it all when there
is nothing left
but the memories that
made it so hard to leave in the first place
the fireplace cackles and spits
i throw in my head
i throw in my head and
it burns and chars
scrapes and melts
but at least i am healthy
at least i am porcelain
pristine
the leather upholstery tickles
that patch of skin behind your knee
but you stay silent -
wouldn’t dare laugh
you blink until there
is no longer a life worth
living, do not blink
i plead
keep your eyes open until
they begin to water
salt water tears
until they are red and
burning with truth
don’t you dare blink
just let them see your smile
as you stick your face in the flames
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
I. I am so angry it burns my lips to speak, lava drips from my tongue and chars my skin and fries my hair and melts my clothes. I am so angry it consumes me it hurts me and it burns me and i do not get to feel any of it.
II. I wish I was a tape recorder. I wish I could remember things better, I wish I could spin myself around the words and play them back in my head later and never forget them. The only thing I can't press pause, or rewind, or erase, is exactly how you sounded when you left.
III. Sometimes I miss you so much I feel like I am running a race dead last and I have anchor weights on my ankles, I never think I'm going to make it.
IV. I think this is for the best but oh god I’m sorry my heart feels like it’s going to fall out of my mouth and onto the pavement
V. Last night someone took advantage of me and today I woke up feeling like it was my fault, it is nostalgic in the most terrifying way. I don't know how I'm doing this without you anymore.
VI. If this is love I want nothing to do with it.
VII. I am forced to become exactly what I need. I have spent too much time nailed to the floorboards right where you left me. I am right where you left me.
VIII. I think about how you have touched me and I feel sick, I think about your hands on me and I want to take showers and scrub my skin and I can’t breathe. I wish no one would ever touch me or kiss me or put their hands on me ever again.
IX. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. I told you I was going to be close to you in two months and you waited until four AM to tell me that seeing me would make you remember what you have done to me. I was awake. I told you to never forget it.
X. Get out of my head, I will not let you turn me hard. I felt soft, I still fall asleep wondering if your hands are cold. I do not want to let you convince me that love is bad.
XI. Yesterday, you told me you missed me. Yesterday, I couldn't force myself to look at you. Yesterday, I said, "I miss you too, but there is empty space where you told me you did not love me. There is nothing here for you anymore." Yesterday, I lied but I will repeat that mantra into my head until I undo whatever damage you have done to me. I will not let you convince me that love is bad.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 4:50 PM UTC
Les chars d'argent et de cuivre -
Les proues d'acier et d'argent -
Battent l'écume, -
Soulèvent les souches des ronces.
Les courants de la lande,
Et les ornières immenses du reflux,
Filent circulairement vers l'est,
Vers les piliers de la forêt, -
Vers les fûts de la jetée,
Dont l'angle est heurté par des tourbillons de lumière.
982
What becomes of love when it is old
when it is old it is as a desirable lace
intricate and woven with time, highly
desired and coveted by all
What becomes of love when it is new
when it is tender and delicate, as a
newly sprouted blade of grass. pushing
through hardship and growing roots
What becomes of love when it is spurned
when it is spurned it becomes as ash or a
snowflake. easily crushed or blown away
by the winds of hurt and defeat
What becomes of love when it is embraced
when it is embraced it is a fire, not the kind that
scorches or chars. but the kind that engulfs your
soul and glows with the happiness only it can bring
JCM 2013 ©
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 10:39 PM UTC
I feel, in the soul, in the belly of the beast.
Flaming coals burning holes in canvas paintings of the East.
At least I know I've been learning captioned lullabies.
Uncovering truths as day by day the lyrics have come to unwind.
My dad is a rock,
He is tough, and I've tried.
But I hope that someday we'll find crystals inside.
Or he'll stop punching holes through the walls of people's lives.
With bleeding fists,
I wish his anger would find a cave and go hide.
My mom is like magma,
she sits and she steeps.
She takes rocks and she melts them into pools around her feet.
She erupts in spurts of vulnerable untruths,
And hot anger that scars, chars, and burns anyone standing close to her.
But when lava sits, and when it has dried.
From the infertile past battlegrounds,
Forests will rise.
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 3:36 PM UTC
Hypergraphia is lacerating carotid
Finally bloodletting into slumber
Hippocampus that
Incinerates its own
Neuron forest and becomes
A conflagration
Because chars are ruby embers
In nocturnal hunger
Of the lens nucleus
Shaken in the tremors
Deep below tectonic plates
Disjointed in the fabric of reality
Severing the empyreal bonds;
Do not hold back,
But onwards, Horsemen,
Hammer that stampede
Unto centaur constructs
Fleeing from the dreamer
Let them shatter in the cracks
Sinking with the dirt into oblivion
Jun 10, 2017
Jun 10, 2017 at 5:32 AM UTC
My dear friend, don't seek to follow me
for I'm off to the land of broken promises and pity,
within its river of alcohol I wish to drown my sorrows -
upon the black pearl that is Heartbreak Heaven City.
It's semi-mythical river runs through a jungle
of grimy brickwork and choked smog -
a city that revels in its own pollution
so much so, it's many people suffocate beneath it's caustic fog.
And this river, of which I speak,
acts as a candle for the deaf and the blind -
no one would ever dare to live in this city
if it weren't for its promises of prosperity pushing them from behind.
Sometimes there's a brief lapse where the fog lifts,
and people sip the river's waters beneath a moonlit sky,
alas, they only end up gorging and passing out -
intoxicated, they fall into the shadowy depths to drown and die.
Oh, tonight I venture out to its miasmic bank,
sadness and anger so intense, my brain it burns and chars -
upon the twelfth stroke I will descend into it's surface,
and my soul will rise to the everlasting stars...
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
Pathetic
drooling
savage
fools.
Inflicting
such cruelty upon themselves.
The impact left,
undoubtedly deserved
like the smouldering
fire
that eats and chars.
The warmth is nice
comforting, easing
but with ******* beings
there is no pleasing.
Feed the fire..
watch it grow..
admire the glow..
beautiful blaze..
it's too large..
Ignorant,
negligent.
So destructive,
it wants to ravage.
Smothered in heat and passion.
Burning
while you sit and watch,
inadvertently.
Pleading
while you play along,
phlegmatically.
Look at the scenery,
isn't it marvellous?
The beast comes out,
you become arguous.
There's no more beauty
in the flame,
the burns and scars
have ruined its name.
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
RECORD: I LIV)E}D] ON THE MOON
FROGMAN: KWOON
RECORD: UNGODLY Froot
frogman: wax tailor
YOU'all are just like other people
We love to sting
sHe loves to trance
he admires b-e-a-utiful twoomen
Us're whoman
And most-times, twoo whomans
:Now I know my ABC'S
watch me confuse'em like the bourgeoisie:
-"but he pronounced it like Bilgemonkzees"-
( . . 3 . Oh dear, I hope you don't forget to feed me . .
2 . "I am still learning,"
and I've Dear'd to Remember to Forget my Confusions . .
REFORM: WRITE FOR SELFSE
{B-E-A-Grateful no-s1: "Read DeadHeads to BEGIN,
or Blue Tails to END"
-flips coin- }
}
1 . .
CONTINUE: DON'T FORGET
RECORD: curiosity's and imagination's
FROGMAN: selfse
program: INTROFLECTION,
I think "We've thunk it once before,
but it Bears repeating,
now"
LISTEN to us, all of you.
Que'Sera!
-caches Bit-
HA! VV !AH
S A Y
HAHAH
-Opens Mind-
"MY FROG... we're full of chars-"
- [May{jor(+/-)To}m] = E.ven-One
-- 1999-2001, a Race Ode-vent-you-See
[END OF LINE]
for those who may be hamyoung-us for the first time
{END OF MY RHiYMnE}
And Whu-may-n't be pondering what isn't going to clappin now.
(BEGIN TO /S/hEwE TiME)
It is of Coarse : Smoothing for the Mind, Body, and The Selfse of us all.
So,
SPEAK/ . 0\UP
|Whyever needs Bee? Wills Bee.|
Oh, you're di-vidend?
Oi've got these Two Mackszillery Tired Molaz, Whight.
whand day I was cwussin'a peace'a fwaery'dandy
and tay cwacked, whont down ta cagey'mentals.
now ta twooe woots is eckzpozed.
and i sding'em evewy dway
. . .-inserts troothpic-
jrus'tho da gwhothet OH's it's thrill'a jlive one up'teir
-- prole
/and the ghost speaks:
?_
/\
/
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 3:36 PM UTC
A house is where you go when you have nowhere else
A home is where your heart is fastened
The people in the house are the ones who thought you were different
The ones in your home know exactly why you did what you did
When your house is burned down, the sparks touch your skin
Should your home burn, your heart chars with it
If the people you know die, you cry for a day or two
If your people leave town, you can't shake the feeling until they return
Feb 7, 2012
Feb 7, 2012 at 7:55 PM UTC
Love an thy be brief:
a fire; doth ete
the flames it mete
and chars the meat.
Love an thy be long
a river; e’er
rampant as air
and never err.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 3:09 PM UTC
Im hearing it all,
Yet still im sitting here thinking,
'Hah! Life? What are you to take mine?!'
But still it plays in my mind how the rusty bridge i cross to get from on day to the next,
Is starting to crumble as slowly and painfully as my mind is breaking.
It does seem to mean that im going insane,
Deing what i want to try to get through a day of my life.
Its not as it seems to me to be that which was mine,
But now its not, it is someone elses, or someTHING elses.
It has no name or shape, and yet it seems to take away from me minamaly.
It chars my soul with te fires of hell,
Yet it gives me the cooling water of the streams to cool me.
It still seems to take,
Though it still does sooth.
It does appear as though im done, but i have no concept of time here i my life,
Im snapping back to take life head on,
Life pushes me to the edge yet i grab it by its gruesomely ugly and spiked tail,
To drag it with me into the spiraling depths of my own despair.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 7:15 PM UTC
Scorched earth
Chars all who walk it
Of the burned
Blistered and broken
Hope is relishing in the heat
Knowing someone else is safe
As long as they're the only one on fire
Some recoil to the warmth
Can only cast the pain onto others
I am straw and twigs
If my immolation will bring you peace
Then I have one last request
Can I get a light?
Dec 18, 2024
Dec 18, 2024 at 10:16 AM UTC
my tears flow down like lava
burning my skin
and leaving crinkling chars
Apr 4, 2021
Apr 4, 2021 at 11:40 PM UTC