"conflagration" poems
*My depraved soul's unearthed
By the Holy Ghost's breath
And given new birth
Out of spiritual death
This wretch is turned 'round
Fit with eyes to believe
A lost sheep is found
And her Shepherd received
My blots are each edited
Out in Christ's fount
His righteousness credited
To my bankrupt account
A prisoner's been pardoned
No debt left to pay
A heart which was hardened
Becomes pliable clay
My life's set apart
Now from worldly regression
Picked out from the start
Made for Christ's own possession
I'm purchased with blood
Shed on Golgotha's tree
A slave bought by God
And fully set free
My sins were all laid
On the head of a Scapegoat
Who carried their weight
To a desert remote
Once an object of wrath
And deserving hell's fire
But Jesus took my bath—
Conflagration of God's ire
So an enemy no more
I'm brought into God's fold
Carried through His door
And out of night's cold
He calls me His child
His heir and His bride
Though once an orphan wild
Now seated at Christ's side
And soon He'll return
When salvation's complete
When no longer I'll yearn
For His own face I'll meet!*
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 11:37 PM UTC
*My depraved soul's unearthed
By the Holy Ghost's breath
And given new birth
Out of spiritual death
This wretch is turned 'round
Fit with eyes to believe
A lost sheep is found
And her Shepherd received
My blots are each edited
Out in Christ's fount
His righteousness credited
To my bankrupt account
A prisoner's been pardoned
No debt left to pay
A heart which was hardened
Becomes pliable clay
My life's set apart
Now from worldly regression
Picked out from the start
Made for Christ's own possession
I'm purchased with blood
Shed on Golgotha's tree
A slave bought by God
And fully set free
My sins were all laid
On the head of a Scapegoat
Who carried their weight
To a desert remote
Once an object of wrath
And deserving hell's fire
But Jesus took my bath—
Conflagration of God's ire
So an enemy no more
I'm brought into God's fold
Carried through His door
And out of night's cold
He calls me His child
His heir and His bride
Though once an orphan wild
Now seated at Christ's side
And soon He'll return
When salvation's complete
When no longer I'll yearn
For His own face I'll meet!*
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC
*My depraved soul's unearthed
By the Holy Ghost's breath
And given new birth
Out of spiritual death
This wretch is turned 'round
Fit with eyes to believe
A lost sheep is found
And her Shepherd received
My blots are each edited
Out in Christ's fount
His righteousness credited
To my bankrupt account
A prisoner's been pardoned
No debt left to pay
A heart which was hardened
Becomes pliable clay
My life's set apart
Now from worldly regression
Picked out from the start
Made for Christ's own possession
I'm purchased with blood
Shed on Golgotha's tree
A slave bought by God
And fully set free
My sins were all laid
On the head of a Scapegoat
Who carried their weight
To a desert remote
Once an object of wrath
And deserving hell's fire
But Jesus took my bath—
Conflagration of God's ire
So an enemy no more
I'm brought into God's fold
Carried through His door
And out of night's cold
He calls me His child
His heir and His bride
Though once an orphan wild
Now seated at Christ's side
And soon He'll return
When salvation's complete
When no longer I'll yearn
For His own face I'll meet!*
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 3:09 PM UTC
We conquer all worlds,
Sweet creature: melt my soul,
freshly thawed, vulnerability exposed.
Eager for unbridled wickedness,
within lilting rhythms of your magic.
So inviting, such interwoven seduction,
I discover that you are indeed, She.
The Mistress who cannot be denied,
so take my hand, I shall guide you,
while you, Dark sweet demigod,
Guide me to intoxicating magic,
magic that is you: and you alone.
Pour your evil charms upon me,
Stoke dying embers of my neglected power.
See the flames rekindled;
feel the comforting ice of my being,
savour my destructive cold fire.
Let me soothe you in return,
offering delicious despicable deeds.
Havoc wrought in your name.
The demonic glow inside grows,
until I fear nothing, Dark Mistress.
I am exalted in this vile inferno,
A conflagration of our own creation.
Dark destiny shall not desert us,
but shall become the favoured guide.
I shall never be without you,
Dark Mistress, and together,
We conquer all worlds.
© Paul Chafer 2014
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 8:52 AM UTC
And now there would come a time
a swift sharp clock on the bed
Blaring its little chime in between the hard bells
Like an angry little arm
Charming if not for the alarm
And everyday I slap the face of it
Like an unwanted *****
And she is silenced
Quick unlike
Said chick
But I am a cruel guy and have no sense of wet and dry
Nor cool or heat
There's nothing bothering me
Time just ticks off and I laugh at it
But my cells divide and turn into little old protoplasmic men
And yet I am not called upon them
Because they are stupidly designed and I have no sympathy for arts and crafts
No masterman
who failing to raise his hand
Clams up
With such poor artwork
Slap that ***** in the dilapidated sistan
Now In San Francisco
Where the alley streets stink of ***
And the European facades are just that
Crumbling
Poopy
And full of ****
And what yet are they dreaming to be?
The church that survived fire
Great conflagration
God didn't make a rainbow at the end of that,
Now did he?
He's a water-sign
Dolt
And water only jolts your mind
When it scatters true light,
Ain't that right?
But it's all the same
Just different hues
And the news
Isn't new
Just Blaring and yelling
And speeding television crews
Riding their stories
Up and down the many stories
Trying to build a city of angels
On a bituminous hill
Shills
No life skills
And I walk the city streets with a ugly old leather
Brief
Casing the joints and rolling my own
Unhappy and alone
Kerouac and the dreams on the monangular input where the triangular avenues meet
And he has no road
While airplanes shake their jets on the tarmac and trebuchet into the air
Going god knows where
Seeing a new piece of the sculpted pinball
Perpetually trapped in the machine
How bout Nippon
Or Hangujin
Or Han Chinese
Or Berlin
Anywhere but when
A little ways along the state
Of "in"
All these strange things
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 3:00 PM UTC
When the fire grabbed his body, it didn't happen by degrees.
There was no burst of heat before,
or giant wave of smothering smoke
and the feeling of a spare room one wants to escape to.
The fire held him at once
—there are no metaphors for this—
it peeled off his clothes
cleaved to his flesh.
The skin nerves were the first to be touched.
The hair was consumed.
"God! They are burning!" he shouted.
And that is all he could do in self-defense.
The flesh was already burning between the shack's boards
that fed the fire in the first stage.
There was already no consciousness in him.
The fire burning his flesh
numbed his sense of future
and the memories of his family
and he had no more ties to his childhood
and he didn't ask for revenge, salvation,
or to see the dawn of the next day.
He just wanted to stop burning.
But his body supported the conflagration
and he was as if bound and fettered,
and of that too he did not think.
And he continued to burn by the power of his body
made of hair and wax and tendons.
And he burned a long time.
And from his throat inhuman voices issued
for many of his human functions had already ceased,
except for the pain the nerves transmitted
in electric impulses
to the pain center in the brain,
and that didn't last longer than a day.
And it was good that his soul was freed that day
because he deserved to rest.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
8.7k
A Serotinous Pine there,
Where winter snows soak into thirsty soil but relentless summer sun bakes motionless
Every plant a tinder held close to conflagration,
in a season's Russian roulette of forest fire.
This pine seals precious seed away from every spring’s promise,
lest burning destroys every one.
Only searing heat during torched consumption triggers the last gentle act,
At the knife’s edge of apocalypse itself,
opening cones of seeds.
Fluttering down to new life on the other side of time.
Tiny bright green amid black ashes.
Swimming Penguins
Birds evolved to fly in ocean.
Wings to flippers, feet stepping clumsily from water.
Yet eggs must still nest, their babies still breathe.
Safety is the very precipice of existence, on bitter ice at 60 below,
Sheltering their young clustered from blistering winds,
fasting from sustenance,
While heaven’s glorious Aurora flame silently over their winter dreams.
So what then are we, on This Earth?
Cerebral Creatures, Storytelling Animals.
Minds created to sense spiritual constructs.
Living is the method of our creation,
Sheltering each other from inherited trials
With contrived joys and sufferings distracting each other
from the soul freezing fearful cold of the Empty Void
And consuming fire of electric chaos.
In the End, our sacrificing gift for our children
is God.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 1:37 AM UTC
A recurring memory which ties us together,
Is the fuel for a fire beneath my pitch-black wings, take this flame,
Burn my body and break my destiny, but deep within it will always flicker in hope to be going ablaze, a firestorm of raging conflagration
Empowered by my heart, the strengh of the sun's core and a stellar flare, sweeping it all away by just a furious, mighty energetic outburst
A star amongst billions, in one of just countless traveling galaxies, may make it less special, since I am neither the brightest or strong,
But as long as I can gift you sweet light, golden and untouched to make your day brighter I will shine, try harder for your fragile sake,
Just don't gaze at me, or I'll burn my image into your eyes, blind you for all of eternity, leaving you in darkness when my goal was to send you warm light to cheer your way illuminate your path and your stay
Flapping my wings towards more light I might appear alike an angel to you, yet, I am nothing more but a demon who tries to be good,
Even if I should cause, through my burning thoughts tragedies,
One day the day will come when everything melts down, heaven then hell, then you and finally me so I am left to rest at the very last,
Embracing you with the sweetness of burnt out black feathers
~ Umi
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 6:02 PM UTC
The air is a mill of hooks --
Questions without answer,
Glittering and drunk as flies
Whose kiss stings unbearably
In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer.
I remember
The dead smell of sun on wood cabins,
The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets.
Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?
Once one has been seized up
Without a part left over,
Not a toe, not a finger, and used,
Used utterly, in the sun's conflagration, the stains
That lengthen from ancient cathedrals
What is the remedy?
The pill of the Communion tablet,
The walking beside still water? Memory?
Or picking up the bright pieces
Of Christ in the faces of rodents,
The tame flower-nibblers, the ones
Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable --
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea
Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.
The heart has not stopped.
5.2k
lovers are burning.] balsamic ****** gallops from shame
into the overwild wetness of labial volcanoes, caramelized in musk. by love's labor.
laid bare, their bodies origami inhibition...[ lovers are burning. ]
and surrender is victorious !
Eros is speechless. maidens howl into cumulus goose-down, chewing carnal haikus
with swayed backs.... hips wide and wanton. masculine wands plow oyster beds, unmade.
they joust pearls... and [ lovers are burning ]
.... a damp conflagration; tongue stoked and windswept, conspires.
monotony is slain !
puritan harps are plucked and thrummed ! lewd harmonies anoint the perfect pitch
and a chorus moans. the ghost of sylvia plath, straddles Apollo; and he earns his wreath
surging besotted. [ lovers are burning ] and laurels forgotten.
lotharios charge the seldom road; the starfish door to Saturn's parlor.
pumping unbridled, that glistening, cloven moon. her riding crop insists !
his urgency must do.
satyrs sup salaciously and summon staves to dip in brine. they grin and grind
their sutras, stripping karma gears with silk scarves. ankles to a post, well spread...
cushions crush. flowers press... stamen fed.
nymphs clutch their serpent stones
to drain what nectar slips the slit. they ***** and throat.
they peck and pinch their quivers; knock their arrows to the purpose, half spent.
[ lovers are burning ]
eyes ablaze. nostrils fetch randy fumes of consent. mouths seek.
a pouty swamp with Spanish moss.... finds a matador
and a bull, a china shop.
lovers are burning the rough sketch of a lost god
and their angels are voyeurs
with unclean thoughts
for gospels.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 3:14 PM UTC
The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams--
Some vague Utopia--and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.
4.3k
I'm told that feeling and love are innate,
So why can't I communicate?
I'm despairing and longing for human connection,
But I'm met with indifference or even rejection.
Internally I harbour thoughts of kindness,
But they wither in the wake of external blindness,
I'm obsessed with truth and authenticity,
And this comes at the detriment of anyone knowing me.
An extreme fear of misunderstanding remains,
Despite me knowing that this is my ball and chain,
A depleting hope lingers on in my dreams,
So fragile and weak, a mere ember it seems.
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 3:34 PM UTC
in ashes hidden, smoulders god of love
from matted dancer's focus conflagration purely come
continues still perhaps in empty homage
of a sa ta na ma
personage of ((Shiva))
white bones pierce the sky
in upward curtain-seethes of heat
beyond imagined burning hells...
the triad ventures into zero-zones of anti-life,
sands of absolute defeat.
shadow trust imparts
a silent teacher's mantras;
soothing psychic words,
"Bala" and "Adi-Bala"
carry over dunes of morbid thirst--
the gape of ancient serpent-maws
choking dust of frightened, elephantine skeletons
fissured by immobile sun--
their inner sound become cool water of a summer stream
in timeless desert, traverses strain of royal line:
god-fated tutelage of seedling savior,
lightning skill with bow and virtue sinew
shining arms horizon's arid form:
despite begrudging honor kings expect
when offspring given after years
in hard-earned sacrificial grace:
yet still obeisance ends in facing demonaic rage
to which is pitted youth to slay--
despite allay by symbol feminine,
as if to question her abode would conjure her
in dire storm and quake announce gigantic step and hairy gulf--
with arrow sprays destroy Thataka's trident, curdling throat
the slitting of, rejoicing pantheon proclaims heroic,
forever railing under epic breath of tacit page theodical:
"we gave you progeny, now grant us our theocracy;
before your son our asthras lay their weaponry"
.
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
Inferno,
Destructive, Infectious,
Contaminating, Traumatizing,Eradicating,
The ending of humanity,
Conflagration.
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 6:07 PM UTC
It won't stop,
It can't stop, the fire that is rushing through it,
Burning it's content until nothing but ash might be left,
An inferno, a firestorm maybe a rain of embers fueling the misery,
When did it start, that conflagration which consumes my being,
When will it end, this purgatory inside my chest, producing misery,
Without realising it I already gave up all my remaining hope,
After all, there is not much left this fire can feast on in laughter,
Will I be hollow, will I fade to ash and blown away into a soft breze ?
In the end it does not matter, in the end I will not be able to remember, in the end there is nothing for me left to worry about,
My central has been turned into a kiln, fostering this flame,
It may sting, but I can move on, even if I sink to the bottom,
The light in me will finally be able to carry me out one day
All I need to do for that event to be triggered,
Is to hold on,
And hope.
~ Umi
[M i d w a y - H i m e]
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 8:30 PM UTC
My heart's so tied up
I can hardly breathe.
It seems, to me, that every scent is yours
every sight or sound,
song lyric or strip of poetry
relates back to you and the knot in my chest.
I best recruit a young sailor
to untie and bend these cravings.
These faint and vague desires
not to kiss you
nor to **** you
but to see you, lay with you, be with you.
That is what I crave daily,
what I need to loosen this knot.
*But
the knot
just
tightens.*
I crave to see you alone on a walk
or you with others
or you with me.
I especially crave to see you with me.
O' that which I'd give
to see you with me.
It must have been the grass
or the beers
or the LSD
because no natural occasion could make me feel this way.
I first heard you before I saw,
singing across the fence.
Your voice was like cream in hot coffee
scintillating, mesmerizing
fascinating, and light;
a drop of sweet in the dark, dark bitter.
I never knew that drinking coffee black
would soon become impossible.
*Everything is
bitter
when you've tasted
sweet.*
It's something in the way you visibly think
about the world and
others actions and
everything I say and do; something in the way you care.
It's something in the way you spit,
claiming the concrete as your own, a primal beast.
You are an incarnadine being,
a vastly deep creature whose
curls I can be lost in for
hours and days if not for those eyes.
Those eyes steal me with every glance,
dark mines of copper and fool's gold.
But pyrite is the sheen to which my mind melts,
and Scorpio sun signs
paint the mystique
that keeps me awake and alert all through the night
You keep me awake and alert,
waiting for the next move.
Yes, I'd be a liar if I said I felt friendship for you
and a heretic if I
dared to touch you.
But you dare to touch me. Every day,
you brush your hand 'gainst my leg,
grab my shoulder and hold,
knock your knee upon mine,
you push me gently,
but I die when you grab my thigh,
grab my thigh and squeeze it tightly
reassuring me that you're there
you're real
you're caring for me
and when the goodbyes come
**** the goodbyes*
you hug me so closely and so tightly
that my heart,
knotted as it is,
beats faster than it ever has.
I swear that it beats
faster than it ever could.
And in this speed, this conflagration of emotion,
I feel how the knot
only tightens to where
even the youngest sailor lacks the nimbility to loosen it.
I swear that it's much
tighter than it ever was;
that no one has stressed my mind so,
kept my heart strained to where it
beats
faster than it ever could,
it beats faster yet, than the
rush of a train upon steel.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 2:35 PM UTC
Hey boo, I find it hard to keep you off my mind because there you're always been found. My lady, I'm so attached to you, what an emotional obsession. Baby I can't stop thinking about you, can't stop picturing your face in the mirror of my heart I see your reflection in my soul. I feel you swimming the ocean of my life. Your charm submerge my spirit. Engulfed in the Conflagration of love ablaze my existence.
Oct 7, 2022
Oct 7, 2022 at 1:56 AM UTC
I run through dialogues
in my mind
as a way to communicate
with someone,
though imaginary as they may be,
my thoughts and feelings
on subjects, of which
I am lost.
"I have no other means,
no friends,
no families,
of which I may defenestrate
these ideas
through the windows of my soul."
"These fires have started
and started to spread
and started to burn my sanity's thread.
My sweater has come off again.
Lying naked in conflagration,
When will I be saved?
When my savior comes,
Sweater undone,
How should I behave?"
I talk to this nobody,
this fool on the hill,
and smile alone
in my empty home.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 6:00 AM UTC
Your toothbrush still has the paste on it
The plate shattered in fragments of you
The glass still has your lip stain on
This bed I'm sleeping in still smells of you
Lying to myself that you'll comeback
Leaving him and crying and knocking on the door begging to come in
But hey, who am I kidding..
*Put the car in reverse as you slipped into neutral
A gear must've rusted; I trust the machine busted
because things became mechanical, to be truthful
Major malfunction--our junction ceased to be lusted
by my soul's circuits and tired wires proved to be liars
I thought I knew what I wanted, but I was wrong
My cogs, guts and screws became loose in the mire
of our muddled love, where I did no belong*
What worth is living when everything ran rampant silhouettes of you
Running through these polaroids on the wall
I did get out, but it's you everywhere I go
You have etched this fire in my heart
When it burns when we're in love
And when it burns my soul
To ashes remnants of you
Trying my best to get out
I knew you were trouble from the start
But my heart's like a glass thirsts for that lust
Now broken brittled into pieces
Fragments no longer could be fitted
*Puzzle pieces and Polaroids for the incinerator
A conflagration consuming our condition
where you fail to see what I fail to do
I may be coldly pieced together, but I'm no traitor*
***My love was just another raggedy rendition,
But your eyes are the demons haunting you***
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 11:54 AM UTC
an incomplete conundrum
a fixed and failed philosophy
a neverending neurotic nightmare
god can’t help you now
so do you go back to what you know best?
the enigma of unfinished cocktails at empty tables
you look to see what else there is
try to be hopeful, though you know the truth
answer questions with a smile
don’t forget to brush your teeth
and never let them know
Do you like music?
yeah.
That’s fantastic, so do I.
yeah.
you’ve never been to venezuela
you heard it’s nice.
thank god for our freedom, am I right?
I wouldnt go no place else
incomprehensible
you walk sometimes
just to be alone and think
why not more
infatuation
with the
permutation
of the
inundation
of the
conflagration
how do you suppose
it all works?
I mean, everything.
the plants told me
the stars are alive
but how does it work?
and what do you do?
and why?
you go back
things come up, and you forget about the magic
the point is to remember
so write it down
read it often
and never forget
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 10:26 AM UTC
~
*Step into the moment
with bated breath,
There will come
the beguilement
and whispered shadows at play,
they seem to congeal around
conflagration of wills
and spirits considered outré.
And if it should rain
within these walls,
we'll advance south and sneak
under cover.
Fingers will find,
lips will linger and remind.
It will be a slow
recovery this time.
The places we travel go beyond
the arms reach,
they war for supremacy,
they alter and spasm,
they're random, but hover
between us in unity.
This dance we make
is an intimate ballet,
this push and pull
a blissful menagerie,
a wrinkle in time
we call ecstasy.
In kisses christened as luminaries,
appointing our own ceiling
— a mural painted in the keen
colors of craving.
The years of such sweet communion
have built this shelter, this nest,
and here together we rest.
And we are no less surrendering
to them than straddling the heavens
— the gauze of time,
timber and tranquility enmeshed,
and wishing it never ends.*
~
May 24, 2021
May 24, 2021 at 1:54 PM UTC
Calm and cosy
Curled up in my cotton tomb,
Transported back to the womb,
Where I dreamt endlessly.
There I smelt my life
Imminent, timid,
But ****** and vivid;
Here it is different
And deadly.
My life reeks of decay
As it burns away;
I taste the ash of my lungs,
Anaesthetised, desensitized,
Stupefied and condemned.
Scorched by conflagration,
Numbed by smoke,
But I do not choke
Just sleep
And keep on dreaming.
My cotton tomb ablaze,
A-kindle and consuming,
Collapses while still fuming,
Swallows me as I slumber
Or so I thought.
My maid she came a-wandering,
A-wondering,
And saw me here a-slumbering
In my cotton tomb of fire.
I felt her drown my death,
Extinguish Hell,
Restore my breath,
And I awoke in a fit of passion,
‘Deuce take me, what has happened?’
The timid creature,
Like newborn life,
Stood trembling, as well as I,
But told the tale
From start to end.
I implored of her
To not say a word;
The events of which have occurred
Are our secret –
Instead I enclosed her in my arms
As rapture seized me in its jaws,
Dragged me back from Death’s door
And threw me at her feet.
I praised her long
My preserver, my protection,
Then let her shivering form go
In the wake of my affection.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 3:39 PM UTC
(the native way)
~
inhale... exhale...
the native way;
an exfoliation,
shedding of
her stunning gown,
plunging softly,
down, down, down,
conflagration’s
consummation,
pregnant pause
by nature’s laws,
until...
nativity’s birth
quenches,
spiritual thirst
experiences,
renewal of her
earthen existence!
exhale...
her lines...
fairly breathed;
inhale...
a respite...
well received!
an earthen blessing,
fallen resting;
inhale… exhale…
lulled to lay
in deepest slumber,
rocking, floating,
gentle ‘lighting
‘neath her boughs
of native wonder.
inhale… exhale…
inhale… exhale…
inhale… exhale…
breathe…
receive...
sweetest dreams!
~
*post script.
Christi Michaels...
her exhalation, my inspiration
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1441952/indian-summer/
no more needs said... except,
thank you, Christi!*
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 12:41 PM UTC