"cindered" poems
I don't know what to think
when i'm staring in your eyes
more akin to speak
in blind lullabies.
than logistify
my heightened
surmise
in flight
to somewhere nice
if only for tonight
come with me this night
ignite
the cindered fires
of our desires
and incite
the throws of light
in **** obscurity
moaning through the sincerity
of our oddities
gleaming in the rarity
of our academy of lust
all or bust
entrust the accounting
of blaspheme
to the enemies
of poverty
and shove me
all the way down your throat
fill you
instill you
with the hope
of a million
grinning in **********
of the tangled mental merchants
of pretty lights and custom curtains
drawn at first light
dispersing
amongst cursing pedestrians
prior to ***********
of forceful ************
with an another human
lightened strikes the truant
in 9 months of fluent
agony
just imagining little Timmy
has me scavenging for a shimmy
to escape
its social ****
to a blind ape
still patting his head
don't be mislead
by ***** carriers
pack your own barriers
and prepare for the scarier
side of a mans mind
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
Burns Creek
Climbing Chimney Rock.
Dad and David Scoville
In their mid 30s,
Two men out to prove
Their bravery,
Their derring-do.
Nervous,
My Mother,
My brother and I,
Five and six,
Necks craning,
Wait and watch;
Dad moves up and up
Clings to the top.
Inept and six,
I stand below,
Admiring my Father's
Fearlessness.
I am nearly blind,
The myopic, thick-lensed gawker,
Peering upward.
The men climb down,
Victorious,
The day’s challenges
Vanquished.
Heading home,
Choking dust.
Old land,
Deep ravines,
Rattle snake domain.
My father's old Ford
Bumps over red scoria,
Billows burning dust.
Ancient land,
Cindered clay,
Open grazing land,
Dry and hot.
Memories churn
From sixty years ago.
Feb 2, 2022
Feb 2, 2022 at 9:08 AM UTC
Befriended street lamps' static hum
Timed steps slashed through electric buzz
Fled from the dawn's grey stain
chased night with anxious breath
erupting
Outflanked and pinned down
by the days
Strike up the band, roisin the bows.
Compose another tired piece.
I dread the melody
and cringe away
from the next movement
I'm only up for burned out wandering.
Another balance overdue
Took out a loan for time well spent
Roll out the carpets for the doomed
It's unforgiving turf where our steps are bent
I'll draw these lines
of ghostly profile night
and coax the specters out
We'll roll on with the tides
where we can dance macabre
until the core unwinds.
Defend the fort for sleeping ghosts
I'll man these walls until the dawn.
I'll fight these memories
beneath the banner of
some others
Shell-shocked with gun arm
growing sore
Outside, the sidewalks glow red-orange
I throw my shadow on the sparks.
Charred homes on cindered streets
I draw my bow
across shaking half notes
Chart out a map of burnt meanderings.
Default on friendships I misplaced
I'm wrapped tight in familiar fear.
But I'll warm to those familiar strains...
Because it's 5 o'clock somewhere, and Summer's here...
I'll cross the lines
into the ghostly night
and wake the specters up
As fires kiss the night
so I can sleep real sound
and let my core unwind.
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
You will be argonaut
one more of the supernumerary
trodding upon the cindered ones
come before you
limbs wooden and somite
encircling a moon
tumescent and blue
in permafrost garrote
on constellations edge
tottering over synapse
mocking
like a mime on highwire
your guilt
lupine in its longing
sawtooth timberline in vivisect night
down promontory
to frozen wave
the broken spoke of your step
on sleetslick carapace
past the preterit
embalmed hide of the world
into the silent millstone
berserk
to return emptyhanded
and changed
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 2:36 AM UTC
Is this the place where garland grows,
Among the olive branches low?
Splattered, cindered, clay abode,
Am I so alien?
Encircled those, in khaki drab;
Paying homage to the bags;
Which hold remains of brave, young lads;
Will I feel again?
Surrounded, chains of un-lit lights,
Which only shine in day, not nights;
Illumination betrays the plights,
Should we become aglow.
A tree of polypropylene,
Adorns the tower, so serene;
A branch of steel hid in-between,
That only gunner knows.
The air of diesel, not of Myrrh,
As pre-fab dwellings start to stir,
Indifferent as they observe,
Fading of the Star.
A failed attempt at lone ‘SandMan’
Adorned with boots, bayonet in hand,
Iraqi winds displace his stand,
Re-formed in Kandahar.
T’was yesterday, on Christmas Eve;
A day ahead of promised leave,
When Paul, Eric, Mark and Steve,
Took leisurely patrol.
In Tikrit, where he was born,
Some sixty years before this ‘Storm’,
They’d set-out on this early morn.
Assessing evening’s toll.
Among the buildings, scattered ruins;
Charred men, like shadows, on the dunes;
From temples soar cremated plumes;
One hour had gone by.
In the distance, beyond the spire,
Come ‘reports’ of skirmish fire,
Incessant screaming of the dire;
Then screams dissolve to cries.
Approach, inside a city square,
Where once a fountain teemed, right there,
Smoldering flesh, low burning hair;
A family splayed together.
Rank and putrid pieces strewn,
Mother’s face, shrapnel-hewn;
Attending Allah far too soon--
All their hands were tethered.
Domestic dogs, now on their own,
Fight for human flesh and bone;
Such holy image sets the tone,
As chorus strikes ‘Jihad’.
Eric stumbles, exploded knee,
Bearing witness to comrades, three,
Souls reclaimed near instantly;
Christmas in Baghdad.
Is this the place where garland grows;
Among the olive branches low?
How I miss New England snow,
This Christmas in Baghdad.
Nov 16, 2010
Nov 16, 2010 at 12:36 PM UTC
The stillness of my cindered heart,
Even tinder can’t restart!
Swipe right for a face to fill the void.
Endless choice makes me paranoid.
Loosing sight of dreams I dreamt
Behind my charms, emotions spent.
My self-worth lost, inhibitions flee…
Your bodies my map away from me.
In the cold light of morning.
New regrets are dawning.
Entangled in your sheets; silence and pain.
You’re another ‘swipe right’ to add to my shame.
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:50 AM UTC
When did hating myself become such an art?
I am the Da Vinci of self loathing
aiding in the rebirth of shame and inadequacy
After breathing, it is the thing I do most in life
I don't quite recall when my childhood ended
Innocence, hope, love and happiness
were victims of it's downfall
I was a passionate child and now a passionless adult
Obliterated by the home truths of life
I see smiling faces and hear joyful laughter
They are content
I ask in a world
with unimaginable suffering and gross poverty
how anyone can be content with being content
It is a perplexing affair
as you see I am not without
my pomposity and hypocrisy
It is hard to live an ordinary life
when you feel you are destined for extraordinary things
but extraordinary is for the others
the rich, the beautiful, the exceptionally gifted
I am none of these things
Yet how come this underlying
undeniable, unrelenting, overwhelming feeling
burns through me
like a match reaching it's cindered fulfillment
that I am destined for those extraordinary things
I feel I am nothing
but I am something
a human being
In this world
with mind, body and emotion
Alas there it is again
emotion, my emotion
my pitiful yet unwavering hatred of the only one thing
I truly have and need,
myself.
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 4:34 PM UTC
On some days it won’t
Need tending to
We can watch the smoke
Billow & Reach
To the sky
Embers mixed with night
Other days it’ll be at the end
Of our wick
And it’ll seem like it’s dying
Just a whisper of light
We won’t like those days
But we’ll get through them
We always do
And some days will have
Blindness
Darkness
And we’ll need to feel it
Each other
Closer
‘Come warm yourself...’
But the best days
Will be when it seems
Like the world is alight
By our love
&
I’ll kiss every inch of your
Cindered
Skin
Wanting to be burnt
Alongside you
And hell won’t be of any surprise
Because I’d have been
With you...
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
Toss these brackened antlers
to a Babylon of early crows
where slim repels of cirrus
lace the marches of Orion.
I wore you as an amulet
hard pressed upon my pestle arm
as charms of montane lunar drift
rebelled about your peacock gaze.
There is balsam on the Eastern run
in piquant writs of clementine ,
where jubilees of Persian mote
reveille in the waiting still.
As hieroglyphs of scrying palm
lay wraith about the cindered pane
you harried in ancestral bell..
The name of some forgotten God.
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 4:10 PM UTC
All I wanted was to warm you,
rub your skin raw until you felt
the fevered blaze you've ignited
underneath mine, like ironing
out wrinkled flesh. I wanted
to restart your pilot light.
Watch the glowing embers
fall, like ashes from the cherry
of your cigarette, as the kindling
surges and cracks from the fricton
of flint and steel. I wanted you
to smolder, and smoke, and blaze
like the wild fires of the Serengeti.
I wanted to destroy you,
a beautiful brilliant bonfire.
Singing away pieces of you.
The tip of the incense.
The edges of of the coal.
The pieces that stop you from glowing,
radiating your brilliance.
I wanted to burn away the parts
of you that douse your intensity.
The charred black wood.
I wanted to burn away the parts
of you that are cindered.
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
Eyes on fire, sweating into sunken sheets.
You begin from the hair,
Lighting me like a candle.
I stare.
What are these morphing molecules of madness
Annihilating my arteries with their acid?
Now you surround me with sun-bright gasoline;
Set bedroom walls into stars.
I am the center.
Ingredients
For a cure:
A match,
A cry,
And a crow
For after, to screech and crawl into the holes
Of my cindered body.
Let the rest disintegrate into the dirt that
From the foundations of our home, has
Drunken our despair and disgrace for far too long.
Nov 25, 2014
Nov 25, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
The spreading of wings,
to cover the night of day.
The overbearing clouds,
keeping the sunrise at bay.
All things great, and all things good,
are things by all means, probably should.
Lead to happiness, prosperity, and joy within me,
or a simple contentment, a peace that will be.
Yet no matter what strives,
no matter what comes to be.
The characteristic of things,
is that they all cease to be.
Happiness. Sadness.
All good and bad.
Like the time of midnight,
vanishing in seconds.
Burning the fuels, and pushing the lies,
we strive ceaselessly, towards countless lies.
Of messages of a future we think we understand,
A glimmer of hope which we barely comprehend.
Needlessly striving, continually pursuing,
we arrive at the destination,
burning, smoldering.
Our wayward soul,
all the burns that follow,
and we look upon, to truly behold.
What we see are the joys,
temporary pleasantries,
a series of countless,
wastes and toiletries.
When we realize the path that we sowed has been done,
and all that we wish for, coming undone.
We begin to regret,
not knowing back then,
that a path which burns,
will lead to ashes in the end.
Yet it is not too late,
for there's always a chance,
that the truth will shine,
bright as the sun.
It is the moonlit night,
the salient breeze.
Which cools our hearts,
and soothes the feels.
When we release the burdens which have cindered us for so long,
what is left, is to go where we belong.
Peaceful and free, cool and placid,
it is then we can say, "Cooling down is worth it."
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 12:05 PM UTC
From across the room i watched with gloom in hand
Trembling of the soon to be lost temper of my severed tranquilities, swiveling on my spleen
Fueling the surrendering of my dreams for one squeeze to lead them all
Fear only stalled in my cause for alarm
No harm shall come before the storm
No spawn of thought beyond the forlorn
Here to see
See nothing
Nothing to see
See something
Something amiss
Amiss of the somethings
Some things are best
Best left unsaid
And unsaid is where they burned
Turned out
Out turned
Turned doubt
Doubt turned
Confidence
Confidence with delicately sculpted prominence over loose targets
Scurrying like varmints
Not to tarnish the cries for help
6 flashes for silence, and a taste of hell
By demon be driven, as we all sell when pressed against hell with the means to end it all
Let the chips fall where they may, as in jail i can prey on bigger things, and emerge a king
Solitary confinement will refine my shrine to stardom
But the martyrdom of ***** is quickly forgotten
Spoiled rotten in self indulgence
Emboldened in molten rage
The pages folded before fading away
In cindered fairies playing with my pain
Falling
As Jagged glass from window panes
Empty walls
Walling in the wisdom
Wisdom calls
Calls for blood
Blood from all
I merely heed the call and fall fashionably
Rationally broken in the cities hold on me, in claustrophobic scolding for my holdings in heavenly weapons pointing to the cure
I expect nothing but the allure of spatter, patterned out to the tune of my doubts, coagulated in lieu of the claps, looping through the traps of no take backs, and collapsing to my synapses crackling in the rain.
Smash my brain, in suicide by cop, I jump atop the bridges that i burned
I turn the other cheek
Just to wink at the weak
Before i leap
And never learned
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 12:31 AM UTC
I am sick with all this fumbling through the not yet darkened hours
let the anchor of the life that was be now ripped away complete
let mourning of its passing hasten and begin, and in the gritted eating of the dust
find me a solace and release of all the **** of ravaged trust
But this grey and bitter twilight, this death of death not yet
is an illness to the days that must be borne by bones my own
and every morning, in the mouring, I would find a silence still, sweet, and complete
but this unknown hesitation, this nagging fainting hope for all that was and should of been
is worse than any dying, such a thing sweet, final, and complete
So fly, vanish, disappear, depart! Leave to haunt another heart!
Go and keep your light glowing somewhere upon another set cindered coals
leave me here to mourn your parting, to let this story fade in the growing old.
Or for God sake, and for mine, become aquainted finally now with the valley of the floor
set your words to groaning and to praying and to begging in the night
and when your knees have grown sore and stiff from the bending of your will
all might be returned with joy and sweeter pain than weeping at the sight
of a prodigal returning and the end of long numb night
Until then, and if even there should ever come a when,
all is grey and dark and sick
as minute hands remind and memories sharply *****
Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
you told me to take a new approach
and let the hawk tighten it's grip around my throat
we are leftover vultures
and you have stolen our might
asinine beliefs
drug induced apathy
my apartment's scattered with make believe
an old sign of cindered sorrow
you left this place with weakened scars
and inferno tears to inform me of tomorrow
you held in your apology
like you had a stake in your foolish astrology
seldom a fond guide
and instead a heartless wretch
you manifested illusive love
and pulled the strings to tear us apart
common love
hunted us
common love
came for us
Jul 19, 2017
Jul 19, 2017 at 3:19 PM UTC
She could blow away,
Burnt to blurry ashen pieces
Of limbs cindered to smoke,
Bespoke pain for a
Place of her own making.
She could sink behind the skyline,
Bleeding death to
A time when she was solid,
And she and the sky
Were definitively separate.
That time when she could cry
And clouds could rain.
But now their tears fall the same
And she is blown away.
Jan 21, 2021
Jan 21, 2021 at 11:12 PM UTC
Curfew dogs pay no
heed to black sheep
Darkness differentiation
derides no delegates
Church bells silence
testicular pendulums
Hands semaphore -
timeless clock towers
Shadowless alleys
cat controlled kerbs
Embers doused, ashen
Phoenix faces cindered
Light rationed through
ill fitting shutters
Charred wood remnants
wafting weightlessly
Whispering eavesdrops
cobblestone chattering
Town crier echoing in
mnemonic mutterings
A rising intonation
dies on rebound, silence.
<>
Lockdown |ˈlɒkdaʊn|
nounN. Amer.
the confining of prisoners to their cells, typically in order to regain control during a riot. the lockdown has been in effect since October 1983.
• a state of isolation or restricted access instituted as a security
measure: the university is on lockdown and nobody has been able to leave.
<>
Curfew |ˈkəːfjuː|
noun
a regulation requiring people to remain indoors between specified hours, typically at night: a dusk-to-dawn curfew | [ mass noun ] : the whole area was immediately placed under curfew.
• the hour designated as the beginning of a curfew. [ mass noun ] : to be abroad after curfew without permission was to risk punishment.
• the daily signal indicating the beginning of a curfew: they had to return before the curfew sounded.
Oct 26, 2020
Oct 26, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
I carry the runes of you in my pocket
Smoothed while recalling
Your blank walks
A wash of blackcurrant and
Holly in your hair
Wandering aimless by shorn clapboard
and storm kestrels overhead.
I think of your eyes
While watching Venus blink,
Tiny speck of green popping
Out of the witching hour’s emptiness
Distracted by a sweet orb only daring to show itself
in time-lapse Morse code-
City firefly’s shy hesitant glow
of phosphorescent luciferase
Impermanent tattoos in the humid air
Asphyxiated by the hum
of flowing electrons by wayward wings
Vintage and neon.
I sweep your edda into the hearth
Ashen mingling of myrrh
and incense sprinkles its cinnamon
Onto bare exposed brick.
The lightning-scarred tree
with its bullseye of char
Burned inside-out,
Cindered base,
Reminds me of our concatenated dreams.
I touch the ghost of you
Roaming the paths of King’s Chapel
and Granary Burial Ground
Farsick and windtalking to yourself.
I still taste the ozone on your lips
After you rained all night.
I throw the bait of you into the water
and the sunfish of Northwood Lake nibble the worms
of your toes.
And I watch the sawing motion of your thoughts
on DVR over and over
Hearing the fibers tear
Knowing the damage of blades and friction
How your heart will always bear
All ninety stone
of Hunters Lodge.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
When the sun cracked
the planets exploded
each merely shrapnel in a second-
or like the gas giants
puttering into kaleidoscopic spirals
and waving a
symphonic farewell to the universe
grasping the furtive tails
of comets.
mercury shrank into a cindered ball
venus ejected its poisonous atmosphere
like a dying woman her most expensive dresses
mars spun off into the velvety expanse of dark-
but it didn't matter.
only the earth wavered, holding on
to its dignity. Its oceans spilled out,
mottled soup shooting from a bowl,
and its internal fires groaned like arthritic
knees.
In the huge expanse of space
no one noticed,
no one cared.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 2:59 PM UTC
The wicked candle of cindered vacations
Invites in the aroma of specials shopping
For school stationery, short-sleeve shirts
And books with which to bury boyhood.
Once scattered now reassembled,
All were dressed like occupants of a warm, neat nest,
Not a plume lent to a rebellious rise.
Barbered and beautiful in balm,
All gleamed gorgeously, save for your humble, sprouting speaker.
Naturally averse to clipping claws
And vehemently opposed to malting manes,
I slipped through the scorching Serengeti to school,
Rugged and sharp in every stride,
Intent only on ******* on the porch of prissy pigeons.
Horrified, they weighed up my Transylvanian talons,
Convinced such manifestations hail from heretic or heathen heritage.
Looking at my lumped locks with gentrified gall,
They whispered low squawks, suspecting lice.
Two metallic hand-held instruments housed in pouches and boxes
Brought my feline rebellion to its guillotined end.
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 11:20 AM UTC
Glances of a golden glow
Face raised up
and layers thrown
Childlike fun
Mid May rays
its warmth absolved
Cindered slow and tender
Scarlet tones rendered red
The invisible hand slaps
with a silent clap
No spite or bite just light
Remember this tightness
Dangers unknown grown
Charred from above
upon those below
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020 at 6:57 AM UTC
As the light slid in
It burnt the dreaded lover
Consciousness cindered and smoked in the eyes
The last thundery beat of breath tore across the confused lips
Lips contorted and irises melted
The vibrations of the ether pushed on
The moment rolled past like a bass line
Cold rhythm of snaking steel wire
writhed through the weary spine.
The path of chaos
Igniting each tendril, each nerve ending
And the lover sighs
For none of us are safe
In the wake of what it means
To be human.
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 11:03 PM UTC
Sand spills, passed trembling hands
And the hourglass is too alike a broken mirror
A counter to an image of us, showing us
light hits glass in right and wrong angles
so good, your attempts, just to falter
Oh, to free a Cindered and forgotten
over a bridge so fully burnt and broken
no more, no route to those shores
something funny in this, the feel of forgotten
stars number in the countless, billions
And alone, we all are but the sum of one
staring back, hands trembling
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 4:32 AM UTC
Flurries fell from the sky,
The day you were cindered,
Everything swept up,
into a blizzard.
Your 6ft2 box was
carried along,
By the men who did you
no wrong
Your casket a basket
In a shroud of frost,
For what did another life
cost?
Ushered inside,
By your mum and your dad,
for this was the last control over
you they had.
Shiny midnight cars, lined the roads,
Bowing their heads,
To their precious load.
My booted feet shuffled,
determined to not move,
I didn't want to see you carried,
Up the flue.
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
What's another man,
Gone in the rust?
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 4:58 PM UTC