"crucibles" poems
Cockroaches in striped pajamas
stained by the scent of snow-melted blood
under a compassionate moon.
No reflection to admire
other than the eyes of a thousand
miserable and sordid puppets
with shaven heads and wooden clogged shoes.
God and their souls
murdered by a vile evolution,
crucibles of Jewish remains.
Rabbis and priests,
scholars and the poor:
moving targets with stars on their sleeves.
Naked souls waited,
listening to the gods of old Germany.
“Zieh dich aus! (Take off your clothes!)”
They shouted, pushing
them further into the chamber.
The doors
closed shut behind them.
A deathly fog clouded
among them,
putting them to drown
under a thick green darkness.
Agonized voices
shredded apart
as their nails clawed
at the concrete walls.
Women and children held each other tight,
whispering Kaddish,
hoping and praying.
Twenty minutes
of shouting and stumbling,
Twenty minutes
of spluttering and gargling.
The little ones witness the eyes
of their guardians writhe and turn white,
as their bodies jolted
as their lives were stolen.
The gods finally entered
to clear the room,
to pile the dead onto the carts,
to visit the crematorium.
To finally shovel the mounds of
striped clothing,
to recycle and burn the rest.
But this end comes
as a sweet release
as their ashes
were sent through the chimneys
and into the air
to rest in their graves.
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 3:16 PM UTC
“The atoms that comprise life on earth are all traceable to the crucibles that cooked light element into heavy element.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson
And up here we have Vega, rigged to a few older men,
Jupiter’s herd of moons. Look through its eyepiece,
convince us there is no such thing as reconstruction.
The right time to return light, the path to earth. Yes,
we are part, living or real. Such is the layout
of this cosmic ballet. A naked man and woman,
a map of earth’s location, unstable in their older years.
He spreads himself so wide, hard at the heavens
for two reasons. Fairly often, someone would call the police.
Handcuffs came from stars, next generation solar systems
quantumly entangled. Size is only development condensed
into a singularity, enriched guts against gears of war.
So what does this mean? The breadth of the actions
taken, meaning limitations, meaning sky was worth looking at.
He charmed the cops with conversational boom, dozens of people
crouching in the dark. Their common center of gravity:
darker barrel shaped streets with long rows of sold-out houses.
It’s not a lecture—how to calculate latitude, one neck cramp at a time,
an extension cord across Merlin’s Tour of the Universe
to satellites gliding in low orbit, nine years to work its way out.
The voice is deep and rowdy—from a man at the edge of the crowd.
The other reason is down here on earth, down the handle of the Big
Dipper. An artist will tell you—crank it some more, until it begins
to glow blue. Red-hot is the coldest among all the hots.
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 12:03 AM UTC
As stars reflect the knowledge of the sacred,
The boiling seas of the cosmos churn acrid.
Upon the nurturance of Venus' passionate quivering calls exclaimed,
The essence of God's wrath so lovingly made tame.
As the chariots of love, upon the courtships of epic virtue, possess,
Our goddess sisters, import the specialty of rule, for which the governs obsess.
As Boreas' trumpet sounds a euphoric ecstatic bliss,
Rosicrucian passion bells hither, to a faint swaying and hiss.
As the murmuring embers of the divine, left receded,
Hour of humanities past, no time of present, so subtley defeated.
As upon death, a mummy spreads its rein,
Crucibles of knowledge, all for not, in vain.
The seduction of fertility and the mysteries left to relish,
Though made bitter upon showers of mourn, to embellish.
The disillusionment of our fathers’ petty immortal opportunity made solemn,
The wisest of men, why, amongst the true, made golem.
Take precedence, then and now, when upon your throne of pride,
As the winds of wrath call upon, our savior’s passion tried.
In due notion a precedence of time, without respect,
A fulfillment of God's love, our souls to resurrect.
As dragons drew the chariots of night with profound duration,
A coward’s sword in hand, his skewer's elation.
As stars reflect the knowledge of the sacred,
Humanities, why… derision for dole, left shaken.
As prophets emit, as seen thus…
When stars do let fall the Sun,
Pray thee, a heavenly Venus.
Apr 3, 2010
Apr 3, 2010 at 2:56 AM UTC
Put down the razor.
Take your fingers out of your mouth.
Drop the rope.
Put down the gun.
Wipe the tears away.
Pick up your head.
Put the crown back on.
Remember why your here.
Your wrists aren't paper.
Your size isn't a number.
Your life is a never ending story.
You're not temporary.
You can't just be thrown away.
You're a gift on earth.
You're blessed.
The past can be erased.
But you can't be replaced.
Words are skin deep.
Yeah, I know the road is steep.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
you just gotta get through your struggles.
Your wrists aren't paper.
Your size isn't a number.
Your life is a never ending story.
You're not temporary.
You can't just be thrown away.
You're a gift on earth.
You're blessed.
The past can be erased.
But you can't be replaced.
We all fear rejection at some level.
We all have a dance with the devil.
We're all in the same game.
Some are just a little more sane.
We all go through our crucibles.
But that's what makes life so beautiful.
Ooo, remember the past can be erased. it can be erased.
But darling you can't be replaced.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 10:54 AM UTC
*the internet... give me a break... i'm trailing on lost bookmarks and postage-stamps, ************ i'm trailing, i'm making up time, the invention is new, i'm making the most of it, you start telling me it's like the wild-wild-west and... well... don't know, i'd be praying to be employed as a cowboy.*
hard time killing floor always excavates the best in me,
never mind Howlin' Wolf or Jay Lee, or the deafman
and Muddy - blind Willie Johnson and Delta Bob...
there's just too much humanity to encapsulate it all;
and perhaps that's the foremost sadness,
a sadness that states: too many of us to choose an idol,
and choosing an idol crucified won't help either
even if literate with the Bible or not;
Jehovah's witnesses won't help you either,
the scourge comes
lessened in magnitude of leper's locust;
you go be on your way politicising
the African demise, but i got to celebrate
that from the Slave trade...
agonising memories of Mozart and Beethoven,
the blues, then jazz, then the **** fuck-burger Elvis,
go back and moan me a blues than you politicise
in a baptist church blind to archaeology of 19 45;
some too said too often the Olive Garden and
the historian Josephus making it contemporarily true;
sing me the blues man exported, than this Ivory Coast
enigma crucibles of what i too would moan about
concerning noble birth; and that too, with inverted commas
gladly forgotten given the silken shawls;
TELEVISIONS AREN'T CAMPFIRES YOU YO-YO *****
Jun 19, 2016
Jun 19, 2016 at 2:07 PM UTC
Winter tested my endurance with its sharp and burning cold and now the warm lavender evening, with its smells and sounds of spring seems like a gift. The breeze is warm, and even the broad zones of shadow contain an inviting warmth.
The campus lamps should ignite soon but groups of students are milling, talking and laughing as if no one wants to let go of the day.
As Lisa enters the courtyard the campus lights flicker to life. As she approaches, she lets her book bag slide off her shoulder. Catching it by its strap a millisecond before it hits the ground as she reaches me - without looking - like a practiced trick.
Taking my hand in hers, she asks, head tilted slightly to see my eyes, “How’d the test go?”
I’m the first one in our squad to take a final - most are next week. “Cinchy,” I say with a grin and a flick of my free wrist, “not comprehensive - it just covered the last section.”
“Yea,” she says, “look at you go!” A warm breeze wells to obscure her face with her flaxen, cornsilk hair. She lets her bag fall the last inch, and ponytails it, two-handed, with smooth, practiced ease.
Finals existed, like ancient, cultural crucibles, long before our time, but these are ours, as if they’ve always been waiting - just for us.
Yale is still new to us, but we talk, juxtaposing experiences, challenging and comforting each other, even though we’re on slightly different paths. It seems that everyone is pumped up though, a little stressed maybe, but more than ready to hit it.
Apr 26, 2022
Apr 26, 2022 at 10:20 AM UTC
Death intrudes.
It’s all he knows to do.
He is not eager, but
nor can he wait.
Nor can we blame him.
No process is pure.
Your pain; their grief.
That’s not what hospitals are for.
These rooms ain’t crucibles.
You’ll remember when he came to visit.
That night on the grass, taking our mushrooms with
ice cream,
mint chocolate
warm and unctuous.
How he
dripped into view at the edge of the woods.
How he
sprawled in the tent, on his back.
How he
whistled together, he and his friends.
You worried that you were nothing.
But we looked at the stars and forgot.
We learned their names instead.
Staring at the screen, we looked straight through the world.
But he had only been waving hello
and singing
expect me again
when you need me the least
Now you,
nursing heartbreak and a dead battery,
and he carrying
a whistle,
and a card trick
and no concern for you.
Hospitals are rooms full of wires and cold coffee
Where time piles under chairs and pillows
and he comes ready to entertain us all.
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 9:01 PM UTC
I dreamt that we were naked.
coddled in white sun,
swathed in snow sheets
except,
only your eyes could breathe:
your body was lifeless,
only existing
in fact,
I remember your eyes the best;
lapis in ivory
crucibles in glass.
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 3:58 PM UTC
Of the road that had been left in haste
I was glad that my soul stayed the course
As the winter and my speeches never would
I never had been frost-bit by cold stares
O', the heat of glares unnerved me weary
I was hardly visible amidst trying times
The climes brought the dreary snow and many crucibles
It was the fire that melted the flakes
I distinguished myself from fakes
I know all that quakes
In my soul that takes less
As it gives away to the lakes
Of warm water as summer finally comes
Apr 26, 2020
Apr 26, 2020 at 8:58 AM UTC