"conflagrations" poems
During moments I yearned for forests grown for me alone,
Caressing them in a dream,
I could sense the throbbing of the heart
Hidden beneath my ribs to bless my journey.
Summoning me with a pulse that he recognizes in me.
I heard the noise of abandoned smoke from a moment of care
Join with me,
Forcefully traversing desires to the hidden-most one.
My spirit swung toward him,
Creating a tingling
On lips that devour breaths alive.
I felt ashamed,
But the eye,
In moments—I scarcely know what to call them—that took me on another route
Toward the television, saw warplanes . . . spray death on them.
At that moment,
The fire of machine guns raked all the bodies,
And another fire raked my body when I trained my eye on him
Hesitantly inclining his head
Toward a shoulder unaccustomed to the secret of the stars of war
Or to insomnia.
Oh . . . . I leaned on it!
And when he caressed a dumbfounded person
I felt his fingers like coiling embers inside me.
Bashfulness seized the excuse this caress gave . . . and vanished,
Eliminating distance till the two of us were one.
And the eye—he moaned: May love not forgive her the eye—repeated another evasion
Toward a drizzle of men flung about in the air by just the rustling of a pilot penetrating a building
To fall on screens as the debris of breaking news.
But his breaths . . . shattering the still down of the cheek,
And turning their picture into mist as
Eddies of the screen’s corpses . . . varieties of death that they brought them.
The spirit that became a body,
The body that was sold for the sake of a touch,
The eye that was concealed in his image
And that approached the firebrand of conflagrations.
Everyone drawing close to everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone.
But the thunder of their machine guns splintered them:
Corpses piled on corpses,
I mean on me,
The eyes of those in it were extinguished.
They slept in a trench of silence.
My eyes’ lids parted in a wakefulness obsessed with them.
I rose … and embraced the chill
That the screens brought me in commemoration of Stalingrad.
………………………………
Translated by William Hutchins
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 10:38 PM UTC
what is this love
for I have beheld it
cast in metamorphosis
a love that makes
transformations on the mind
permissible transformations
improvisations of the self
in ****** intensity
which emphasises the drama
of sometimes, dark, violent
and repressive potentials
vicious energies of hate and ambition
that propel the enactment
of intense and exhausting experience
of vigorous vertiginous chaos
indomitable in its desires
what is this love
is it a registered predicament
made memorable by vivid language
that would butcher in ritual
gratuitous memories and testify
to an urgency of unwisely relinquished emotion
what is this love
does it flourish in flawed
and unreasonable understandings
accumulated upon the mind
in vicarious thrill of sympathy
where traits are highly exaggerated
and eagerly anticipates
the oppressive weight of the past
that functions upon a common collapse
of distinctions
or does it manufacture artificial precepts
pretending in attractive collaboration
to associate fiction rather than fact
what is this love
is it that by treaty or inheritance
with loving ferocity would embalm all tears
and hide all those collaborations
in flared conflagrations of the heart
and yes create a turmoil in the mind
hotter than a thousand summers
and vividly stamp upon a twisted body
a moral viciousness of fathomless malice
that wouldst close its ears
to the admonitions of conscious
and thus through an improbable
incantatory verbal rite
touch the hidden order of all things
in disassembling nature
what is this love
if only it was known
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 5:26 PM UTC
I have the shape of the institution.
Each email address is a human.
They are known by their words and actions.
The whole wide world is just a fraction
of all I do not know. Expansion
and contraction, breathe in, out, meditation
on existence, non-existence, creation
and duration. I have no explanation
for fusion, fission, taxonomic relations
or artificial classification.
More I do not know: locomotion
by combustion, electron separation
and transportation via superconduction
which supports the idea of the unified nation.
What girls are like behind their eyes. ************
a useful restraint on overpopulation.
The story of a life, my life, any life, cohesion
must be rationed, conjured, a fiction
about a vexed, tenacious town, its rail station
truck stop, high school, night spots, recreations
the temporary citizens enact visions
dream-like orations, ballets, conflagrations
to in the end receive in annals honorable mention
from family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, institutions.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 12:11 PM UTC
Courageous Phoenix, what do you know
of past and future conflagrations?
With wings afire, do you sense
the embers of your renascent soul?
Is your savage life-death vortex
as mysterious to you as it is to us?
Although I'll never fly on Phoenix wings,
or share your tortured falls and resurrections,
I feel I know you as a brother
for we all have Phoenix games to play
with each dividing and perishing cell
its own ancestor and descendant -
tomorrow's joys born of present sorrows.
Who among us has never tasted
the bitter gall of enmity -
or been driven to our knees
by the searing blade of failure?
But time is the most physician -
stirring new life from the ashes of despair.
Noble Phoenix, in our barren seasons
when scorched spirits tumble to the earth,
soar down from your blackened rock
and restore the feathers of our tattered wings.
March, 2012
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 6:05 PM UTC
at this time in the past right here
it used to be real
oh!...oh! for another reality
to leave this false perception
and go...go...go to feel the wind
on another's face
to see with another's eyes
how the colours appear to them
to hear what another hears
with an innocent ear
to feel the euphoria
that slows the world down
to have another's departure
from all perceived notions of reality
to a new understanding
another reality
where brief encounters with time
start with the embarkation of a sentence
that causes a curious disquiet
to race through the nerves
ricocheting in a vibrancy
of vatic vitality, a creative tension
transforming the cortex
creating new unforeseen images
a new reality where thoughts are visible
and circulate, orbiting moons around the mind
dazzling with a universal symbolism
that with a kaleidoscopic vengeance of words
scatters and amplifies the distinctions
of the senses, into a new reality
one of convulsive voices
oh! this new reality
it causes me to walk to a stranger
who is myself
and forms a true disintegration
of a controlled focus
on a beautiful disorder of
chaotic discourse of a volatilized impulse
of the emotions, where blood stains smile
lavishly with a different vocabulary
destroying a predictable reality
and forges a new one that entertains discovery
of other dimensions.. which are the figments
of another's imagination
it is solitary encapsulation of ideas
that glitter on my tongue
where conflagrations of burning water
swirl dramatically in difficult articulation
of the smells and rancid ***** stains
of the ordinary that tries but is precluded
from the stream of consciousness
rushing in a discord of sympathies
through the inner geography of my mind
and forges a symbolic relationship
with these inplosively brief encounters with time
causing psychic post apocalyptic
predispositions to a false mimesis
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
On your shoulders, slender waisted maiden,
you carried the burdens of this earth: like
Atlas of the old, you of Amazonian strength;
Yet today you sink, weighed down by
the vanishing vestige of shadows aflicker.
Shadows that consume all, engulfing nights,
harbingers dark of conflagrations rise.
Disbelief is our creed. But enough we believe
to vote them to power, our leaders we so love.
Yet in the hour of decision, we must believe
in their indisputable dishonesty.
Yes, aliens are around, Area 51 is for real,
late night appearances on Larry King live?
For the select few, sure, for a select price.
Osama did not die. In fact, exist, he never did.
Flags felled of the towers twin ? False, them false!
How belief, when Iraqs can happen?
Whither the weapons of mass delusion?
Conspiracy. In bloodlines is our interest
but not in the man who gave that blood for us.
Alas those to preach that love vested,
too are in gossip and scandal invested.
Fickle is our love, the mistletoe occupies now
the sacred space of the matronly banyan, and
the owl upside down, for the dove beloved old
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
I watch, bemused and slightly envious
at the conflagrations and confrontations
of fiery talents one third my age.
The heat, even electronically once removed
is still enough to make me break a sweat
as I strategically place another log
on my banked fire, lean back, and smile.
Jan 12, 2011
Jan 12, 2011 at 4:53 PM UTC
Rings of light lowering from the skies I called my faith Godly and A universe is birthing somewhere; Transporting peace into this world everyone else infidel. Now I going extinct Dinosaurs in There! Ant-eating stick,
I emerged have divine rights to pillage all.
A galaxy few light-years away, A tool-making ape. And gave the Shoreless ocean knocking the heart. At this very moment, life first
key to St. Peter and walked, walked That I locked away behind a
door. peered at
the firmament of stars. Bequeathing hopers,
A light called forth and I walked forth A supernova ***** all light. memories down epigenetic lines. out a mollusc to the future But peace was alive all along. An arc. Epic. Exodusish. enroute a transcience
called man; Now
in the fear of a mushroom There is a God.
Too bland for our Tossing around in a centrifuge. clouds, she graces
the world in taste, lighting all hearts in peace-fires. Giant wheel. Merry-go-around. her dome-shrines dotting the wide
shores. And now
we like them, deranging conflagrations more.
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 4:32 PM UTC
silent tears burn
angry nightclubs with unconscious menageries of orange childhoods
drink the attention
artificial gleaming bodies licking knives sang burgundy 'glow' covers
winter answers ragdolls with drowning voices and double standards
aged sunrises shatter china wisped from personal dedication doodles
reminiscent of rain
seas mercilessly embellished with stinging souls from superficial smiles
suffered pink
writers cry ink and scream distant songs of artists life past
long understood things
premature custom murders and the crackling of caught conflagrations
professional bullets to multiheaded actresses pulsating lies
sacrificial circuses with retro dancers
bold riding on evident songbirds
choice movements ignored the colored flame
nonexistent pronouns
alien campaign
slithering sunlight control
impermanent celebration sending snuffed cries to insult children who struggle with melody and shed vines of saved unsure crime and unknown attraction
lost passengers with incorrect guestimates and impossible dreamlike stabs
honest as snakeskin
court born with salt and glitter
king calming tentacled shakespeare
seasoned atmosphere
looker smile
hiding sweet prominence
grasp shadows
finger paint the walls,
dead brother mine
white flame realize light pain
coldhanded, rosy eyes
death slowing reality
stop
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 12:13 PM UTC
Mystic
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 conflagrations, 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.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 2:34 AM UTC
I consider myself indebted to incalculable probability , allotted a brief stint upon this miracle dubbed Earth..
Blessed with eyes that perceive far beyond abstract form and color , pupils that recognize each human emotion , casual glance or smile aimed in my direction .. Ears that detect the intricacy of classical compositions , miraculously discern laughter from tattered speech , a cry of joy from a call for help ..
The aroma of raging conflagrations distinguished from chimney smoke , hot meals or Pine forest from honeysuckle and rose petal .
A plethora of gustatory charms committed to memory .. Wisteria within the tempestuous breeze , a kiss on the cheek , butterscotch ***** to a spot of tea ..
Arms that have cradled grandchildren , plowed Spring fields till sundown , crossed cool Piedmont streams , cut firewood and all manner of farm labors . Laden with Summer harvest , performing guitar melodies on late Summer evenings ..
Recording my observations with the eye of a poet , from the invocation of mankind's document , a penned treatise of my beloved Georgia ..
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
A deep need, like a sickle,
Cuts through thoughts and refinements
Until the tip breaks against
My nature,
Open, thriving, cursing,
Casting spells and aspersions,
Playing at bits and soundbites to ward off expectation,
That sickle swings into the core of me.
Until the tip breaks against my nature,
And I ask again,
For one final permission,
To be everything I am,
From someone as mortal as the universe.
And it is granted.
But I grunt and curl around a wound,
Bleeding instructions on how to heal the world,
Knowledge holding water like a rag,
While intuition rages and fragments identity,
That sickle swings into the core of me,
The tip breaks against my nature,
And I ask to be excused from everything I am,
Because it means holding still in the fires of my friends,
Until we learn our way from devastation.
And I'd rather those conflagrations not exist at all.
And then the sickle swings again.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 2:31 AM UTC
i.
dear cosmonaut,
some days
i am in love with you.
some days
i am in love with you
and i ache in every language i know
and a thousand i don't;
your name spilling from
constellations like some
pure wor(l)d built
elysium.
ii.
there are days
i am ador(n)ed
by the skin of those
who matter
when kindness blisters
and it burns;
i am spitfire conflagrations
and no respite, no shelter
when comfort is the
flame
you fly from.
iii.
in the between
moments
i am paused
floating lonesome
interstellar satellites
in orbit;
these are days
that feel like all days
and none
and i cry out to believe
i am. not broken,
yet sacred and longing
sca(r)red, and
wanting.
you,
perhaps.
iv.
dear cosmonaut,
some days
you are everything;
but the sun
must always
set.
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 1:14 PM UTC
a ) Enhance the timbre of one's voice
b ) Report the taste of food to the brain
c ) Ignite unquenchable conflagrations ..
Dec 26, 2022
Dec 26, 2022 at 3:29 PM UTC
*A deadly task at hand , see the November broom sage conforming with the lay of the land
The smooth stones are secure in their creekside homes
Adolescent Crepe Myrtles abide in the company of elder Oaks
Every plant allotted soil and very much aware of their place
Under the ever meandering compression of man with a valuable lesson of humility and grace
Behold the wall builders , the ceiling setters , the clothed and the rambunctious
The soil breakers , the ravagers , the fire starters , the problem
solvers mingled with the war mongers
The breath of creation fueling their thirsted conflagrations
Behold "the thinkers" , destroyers and the manipulators* ..
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 4:29 PM UTC
whenever the silences
fall on our supple bodies,
it is as if we are strangers.
now that i am coming home to you,
the memories make the evenings
longer, stretching them to their
capacities.
when we are lulled out
in the surge of the next moment,
our eyes pull us back to
each other's arms as we struggle
to make collision. whenever a bendable luminary lifts to light your face in utter calmness, many stories ache to be told and now, once more,
i hurry home to the warmth
of your hearth,
tender with the conflagrations
of my heart's tillage
and all the aggregations and their accompanying pains,
i have voluminous stories to
still in your ears. these intimate susurrations.
will you listen?
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
Geocentric conscious shrouds
Revolve around illusion clouds
To find the stars
We search the earth
And watch our suns die out from birth
Red giant idealistic youth
Pursuing supernova truth
Ambitions of
Infinite space
In time dark matters shall erase
No solace in maturity
Just rise and fall obscurity
Alone out here
Burning to show
The universe how bright you glow
Revelations of these fusions
Conflagrations of delusions
To bugs racing
Towards the end
Diminishing the light you lend
Horizons never reachable
Your energies unteachable
Nebulous
Dreams come to pass
Unfulfilled old ball of gas
Life stages shrinking us sequential
Makes quasars of our potential
Growing cold
In voids bereft
Until black holes are all that's left
Nov 29, 2016
Nov 29, 2016 at 2:17 AM UTC
here is the cold
heralding my bones.
shivering in the cranial
are the spine of many visions.
here is the announcement
of it in mid-step:
space is our station.
movement's tenure is endless -
a separate illusion
bleak like an unwanted behemoth,
gnawing the skin like
a raged lover would
in summery heat of body.
here is the miracle
of its pursuit:
mind extricates itself
from frame morphing solitarily,
squandering the mist
of this inward-breaking commune.
like a prisoner swallowed
by a garrison, lapping in recalcitrant afterthought,
eyeing for conflagrations.
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC
chase me
to an uncharted land
marooned, I wander
compounded by pain
and madness
no roses for me
only thorns to bandage
my festering wounds
chase me as if I were rattling
on the verge of death
and all but one eye
was blind to my dying
I heard you mutter
chase me as though you
had purged all but
one lust from
your habits
those black geysers
gush from the deep habits
of the earth and
in my mouth I relish
wine and conflagrations
of both blood and carnage
both terrestrial and burnt
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 3:26 PM UTC
The poison within the body
Enemy to heart
The engravement on senses
the caller to insanity
and the irritant to sane
Slithers like a snake in the blood
When emitted by the ignorant
dominates the mind, blinder of sight
A fire amongst others
Conflagrations that dangle
dazzled
Possessing, decieveing
the owner
until over
Hatred
The cessation worst than..
All concluded
The ferocious of predators
Feeding on flesh
it's own
The inexorable reel
as it lurches
as it swallows
Now the eyes of the grieving
A mountain casting out its snow
till it's reduced, to naught
No moment, to untie itself
from shakes of own
Till none left,
Due to
a mistake
a regret
That's the way it ends
Oct 31, 2019
Oct 31, 2019 at 8:11 AM UTC