"kerosine" poems
Where we shoveled coal into the furnace was an inconsiderable door. Behind it held ***** chubby cherubs with cherry tomato noses, whose job it was to keep the fires of our parent's liquor cabinets full. This they did to keep them from constantly beating us, but the happy distraction did not always work. So, we would pluckily go. Go to the scuzzy pond at dusk with kerosine lanterns and listen for croaks. We tied forks to the ends of canes or stakes and would gig bullfrogs for dinner. It became only momentarily mortifying, but was always a choice way of ridding our sisters and other clingy girls of our company. We'd fry the legs in cornstarch and pepper flakes and be allowed to share with the adults their beer if it was a good catch. Usually, it was. Most of forever we waited for teaberry season, always the best time of the year. Though it was hotter than Beelzebub's bath water we'd go swimming in that **** pond to reach our favorite teaberry patches. This ensured our riches and fame throughout our Appalachian village. Everyone would eat teaberry ice cream and sing our names and no one beat us on those days.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 3:08 PM UTC
Bel blo mi pen ( my stomach hurts)
My mother isnt there
Bel blo mi pen
only fathers, brothers, uncles, washing public
Bel blo mi pen
village pig is in my stomach
Bel blo mi pen
Ralarlar Village I am
Bel blo mi pen
I stumble to the cook haus (kitchen)
Bel blo mi pen
Bubu Tami and Bubu Peni ( grandmother Tami, grandfather Peni)
Bel blo mi pen
half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of sugar
Bel blo mi pen
kerosine and flicker follow
Bel blo mi pen
forest and twilight, unfamiliar
Bel blo mi pen
heshen bag, dirt, hole, diarrhea
Bel blo mi pen
she whistles softly, kicking earth
Bel blo mi pen
The sound of you are not alone
Bel blo mi pen
never felt so at home
Bel blo mi pen
photo, me as baby and her sitting on the floor
Bel blo mi pen
never will another cushion
Bel blo mi pen
I wept at the airport after only 5 days
Bel blo mi pen
Years later when she passes
Bel blo mi pen
she visits me behind my eyes
Bel blo mi pen
another year passes, a disguise
Bel blo mi pen
Tami born in Melbourne niece, surprise
Bel blo mi pen
A moment living, never dies
A woman heard a small girls cries. Alone, without her own mothers eyes.
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 6:10 AM UTC
Red tailed fox striped jewelry box,
but these jewels shine of coal.
I keep trying to feel,
but I got no hope
in my heart
or in my soul.
Red tailed fox striped jewelry box,
you sit next to the bearded elf.
Third from the right, seventh shelf.
I carry you around like a babydoll.
Ragged dress with a hooded eye;
you reek of destruction,
but like a prized possession
I'll carry you to my grave when I die.
Red tailed fox striped jewelry box,
may you spare me one key?
I beg of you to open up,
Please, please, please!
Shed some light for me.
Golden
Grown
Sewn
and
Shown.
That's how our hearts seem out to be.
Dripping wild, red cries of kerosine.
Their voice sounds of dusty rust
when they sing.
Tripping over the finish line
their broken back
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK
cracking.
Red tailed fox striped jewelry box,
but like a door
this box holds much more.
Much more than a box has held before.
The secrets that lie
rest behind
dark, evil crescent moons
like the sun reaching an eclipse.
Typhoon lips.
Untouchable kiss.
Half of a whole.
Red tailed fox striped jewelry box
shines of nothing
but a bunch of coal.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 9:02 PM UTC
you hurt like ache
and adderall
and arnica
you hurt like bruises
and battle scars
and broken bones
you hurt like cuts
and *******
and countryside
you hurt like death
and destruction
and die-hard
you hurt like electricity
and emergency rooms
and edit-undo
you hurt like **** you's
and fire
and fallen trees
you hurt like garbage cans
and gonorrhea
and gang ****
you hurt like hell
and holes in the road
and heartache
you hurt like israel
and illness
and ignition fumes
you hurt like jaundice
and jugular veins
and jack in the box
you hurt like karma
and kissing
and kerosine lamps
you hurt like lightning
and love
and literary terms
you hurt like mother
and mary
and moses
you hurt like nakedness
and nosebleeds
and nervous breakdowns
you hurt like oil spills
and old yeller
and oral quizzes
you hurt like parkinson's
and parties
and panic
you hurt like queens
and questions
and quantum physics
you hurt like rogaine
and roses
and rope burn
you hurt like solar power
and stomach aches
and ***
you hurt like teeth cleanings
and tar
and tobacco
you hurt like ulcers
and underwear
and unrequited love
you hurt like viruses
and venus fly traps
and vapor rub
you hurt like warning signs
and weight gain
and war
you hurt like x-rays
and x marks the spot
and xoxo
you hurt like your mom
and your dad
and you
you hurt like zig zags
and zero
and zip ties
(a.m.c.)
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 2:05 PM UTC
and we put our hard earned dreams
in a wooden beach chair
and set sail
cross the blue blue sea
using seashells as hats
using palm fronds for tea cups
and get em all mixed up chasing paper doilies
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus goin
because that smile you gimmie honey
midnight and she stepped to the edge of the road
with a rubber duckie in one hand
and a lethal dose of reality in the other
she will use one to make you laugh
then she will administer the other one
cause that's what she thinks is funny
but that's the thing
reality checks always bounce
got rubber duckies on the brain forevermore
sneak down her road
with her hand in mine
and all the mister naturals in the world
couldn't be wiser than the cherry eating
little gnome in the movie usher outfit
sitting by the exit
charging admission back into the world
cause its exactly as advertised
its stranger than freakin fiction
and its heavy brother
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus going
because that smile you gimmie honey
they ain't got too many passion moments left
let em get on with their
neon green VW bug and its
fifteen clowns waiting in the trunk
cause if all else fails and she needs distraction
you can set up a tent and sell tickets
to the sunrise of her surprise
at how easy it is
but deep down inside you know its heavy brother
so you pick up a guitar and start to play
whatever tune comes to mind
and while chopsticks is better on a keyboard
your heart is hungry and chinese sounds good
she lights a kerosine lamp and holding up to the sea
all the lost sailors hoping to find their homes
stop in for tea and a biscuit
it all sounds like romantic gibberish to me
all this play for pay
food for gain
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus goin
because that smile you gimmie honey
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 1:01 AM UTC
Recently
it seems
every time we talk
our cacophonous
voices don't sing.
The harmony's off--
lost it's charming ring.
The tye-dye mind's eye melody
is mellowing into a gray spring.
And I'm wondering why?
But...
I think I know.
Only asked cause
I was hopin' you might hum some other musical notes,
ones that won't turn this song into a black swan dive
forced to call the huntin' dogs to track
back to a time where you and I laughed freely.
But there's this feeling
that this is how your other he must have felt
while you and me were undoing our belts--
yelling & screaming
as my parents were sleeping
upstairs above--
we played each other like saxophones
to this grand Nirvana relaxed crescendo!
But as this poem progresses
the tempo stiffens--
your voice lessens--
as the harmony's off-key
and the melody's riff softens.
It's not hitting me hard like a gong-
feels like two people singing
different lyrics into the same microphone.
Someone with synesthesia can see
our colorful speech atrophy
instead of pirouetting in turquoise dreams.
If that sounds harsh,
sorry, that's the reality I perceive--
we don't want each other to leave,
But our avoidance of labeling
what we are also established what we weren't
and now this playful...thing? we had
feels like a breaking carafe as it hits the floor.
I want to continue writing you more poems and songs
but it's hard when the harmony's off-key
and losing it's charm.
This new lentando^ tempo's like a left arm going numb.
I want to keep composing
but it feels like water
instead of kerosine pouring
on the fire that was inspiring
as this mournful melody dilates throughout my being.
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
He dusted off the old rocking chair
& asked me to have a seat
He'd tell me what he was doing there
If I'd simply take a load off my feet
I found this gesture laughable
I would rather stand!
Then listen to another word
Uttered by this despicable Man!
But His confidence eluded Him
He knew I would protest
& yet I saw Him conceal a grin
At the denial of His request!
At this point, I couldn't even move
I could barely breathe
He acknowledged my discomfort, said,
"Very well" & took the seat!
As He sat there callously,
Scoping out the room
He said He just could not believe
The daffodils won't bloom!
This absurdity helped catch my breath
I quickly snapped to interject,
**** the flowers! **** this place!"
& turned to flee with great hast!
This made Him chortle with much glee
He barked, "Silly, girl, you cannot leave! I know you've known this all along, The Cottage is where your Soul belongs!"
I felt so angry I could cry
I hit my knees & pleaded: "WHY?!
I kicked You out so long ago! Don't speak to me as if You know!"
& this is where the story twists:
He dropped His grin & stood up quick
Now, controlled by His brown eyes
Forced to hear His every lie:
"I know that we have been apart, But that's no excuse to neglect your heart, & that is why I'm here again, to protect you from yourself, My friend..."
& that's the moment I lost my mind
To hear Him call me "friend"
As if His love, I could deny!
(So, instead, I was forced to pretend)
But He already knew my tricks
We played this game before
All this time Our stubbornness
Is the very quality We adored!
So, while He tried to lecture me
I quickly stoked a match
I had laced The Cottage previously
& dropped it on a kerosine-soaked mat!
& as I laughed maniacally
at the seconds we had left
To my surprise He grinned idly
As We slowly burned to death...
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 3:12 PM UTC
I'm the kind of girl who burns through guy friends like rubber on tiers, like sulfur on matches, like gasoline and kerosine and flameward moths.
But I don't want to burn through you.
We just go together so well—like puzzle pieces.
You and I are like day and night, sun and moon.
If you only knew how it eats me up inside, keeping my cool.
I feel this tiny spark dancing in my heart and it threatens to rake my body in flames, ready to pounce on me, licking and biting at the first sign that I'm falling for you.
I'm really trying to hold my fuse right now, but one second we're joking and laughing and in the next you say something that tugs at me and I feel my hold on it slipping.
If I don't burn you first, this fire in my bones will certainly consume me.
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 6:13 AM UTC
The way that you look at me
Takes my breath away
It feels extraterrestrial
From another dimension
As if I’m living another being’s life.
The way that you look at me
Lights me up like kerosine
While simultaneously freezing my body into goosebumps.
The way that you look at me
Make me look at myself differently;
I love me more in loving you
I love me more in you loving me.
May 5, 2018
May 5, 2018 at 4:59 PM UTC
strike a match to the crickets
and kerosine douse the sleeping bag
their hum is not a metronome
your dreams are not burning
fingers wet (with sweat?)
these works were not meant for daylight
submerged under moon's tide
let us make love instead of dreaming it
let us make our own rythm for the crickets to hum to
backwoods are the perfect place to get lost
as bark crackles life into night sky
let us singe skin as untamed flames
this tent is no holy place
more like a furnace
so for tonight
let's burn
with the crackling bark
let's start a forest fire
strike a match to the crickets
and kerosine douse the sleeping bag
their hum is not a metronome
reality is burning
let's burn
Dec 12, 2012
Dec 12, 2012 at 1:11 AM UTC
As she spews contortion
from her violin chest
The sounds of C minor
began to build a nest
&
As he sifts through propaganda
of bamboo and blast beats
The floor begins to take him
for he hasn't slept in weeks
---
Their thoughts cascade like fire
around the sounds of Show Your Bones
And kerosine licks her wounds
as they spit it up upon old homes
They strike their fondest matches
and watch the wooden parts ungrow
And then they place them in each others mouth
Where no one else will ever go
She dances with rhythm amongst the chaos
while she weaves a tail of smoke
And the beauty caught in her third eye
is the only thing that's broke
His gaze is focused on only one thing
the pittered pattern of her percussion feet
As he finds warmth by the molten lava houses
while standing at the center of the street
Their goal was finely furnished
they burnt a hole right through their childhood
One that would scar their mother earth
who had forgotten how to feel this good
Their past was made of synapses
that could only be found up in their head
And when they really thought about it
they found that 'now' is all that's left
---
As she choreographed a drum line
with the snare found in her sole
The days, the months, the years: her life
began to take their toll
&
As his desk sits around him
he pens a mystery
Of flames and lust: of destruction
he can finally fall asleep
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
I was alone, but not too lonely.
You were strong, but that was only
When your brothers were around.
Brand new, seemed like something better.
Pretty scars, eyes like leather.
So much different than we’d seen.
We made love with a choking hand.
We stayed drunk on a million plans.
We were running out of time.
Even the cruel get worse than they deserve.
Even the cruel get worse than they deserve.
Even the cruel get worse than they deserve,
But baby, you deserve to have it all
I was sweating through fiberglass.
I got a feeling in my hands
I’d be apologizing to my dreams.
Tripping slow, spit in the glass,
Blood on the pillows, falling fast,
Choking on a nickle in the dark.
Laughing happy with manic moon,
Melted glass in a broken spoon.
We were the spirit of the times.
Even the cruel get worse than they deserve ... etc.
I bent down on a blizzard day
To find out what was in my way.
It was you, you were praying to nothing at all
I lit a candle to the ghost of magazines.
I burned down a strip club with kerosine.
I was wondering why I felt so bored.
I woke up on the rooftop.
I was making sure there were no cops,
Alone, but not too lonley, staring down at the street.
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 9:14 AM UTC
I'll stay awake tonight
I'll make sure our memory
stays
alive
I'll wrap it up
hold it close
give it warmth
rock it back and forth
I won't let it grow cold
I won't let it's light die out
I
I will hold it in my heart
let it set me on fire
orange burns flaming blue
finality drops like a gavel
resounding
echo
ring
endsclashwithbeginnings
as sunrises and nights do
my stomach tips
tipsy containing all of you
my lips they
burn
from dragging you in
I smoke you
and
I
I choke on your
sickeningly
sweet
poison
you
fill
my lungs
deflate my kerosine heart
your love
burned me
up
my skyscrapers
down
coldly hollow
winded room
with blown out candle thoughts
lifeless eyes
c rac ked
window panes
the glass you
touched
was frigidly warm
with nocturnal sapphire gleams
my door sits ajar
but you knock continually
banging
my wooden paneled frames
splinter me through
rapture
my shores of endless sores
I
I am
I am begging
you
to light me on fire
set me ablaze once more
power hold of gripping electric lies
did it give you some
sick
twisted
satisfaction to break me
down
to shove my head
underwater
and force me to
drown?
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
My heart is trapped
Tapped by your venom
Cut with your idioms of imitation love
You were never capable of anything
Other than plunging your dagger deep within
Severing my veins of love, compassion, and self-worth
My spirit cried for you,
My heart sang for you,
Your eyes burned an inferno of kerosine
Calling mine beautiful
I was your magical creature
And you were my devil
You were an artist, carving
An intricate design of yourself on me
Cauterizing yourself within who I am
Just let me freeze
One day of being who I want without you
Never again do I want to see your face
Spelling your name in poems
Wishing you would disappear
I wish you nothing but...
My personal hell
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 10:51 PM UTC
To hate is to remain loving,
But for you I feel nothing,
But cold.
These hands used to be on fire
Like summer doused in kerosine, alight with lust for life
Snuffed out slowly, drowned in their own sweat
Now everything they touch is forgot. Forget,
But your mirage was never kind
To leave your trails of sand then hide
Short-circuit the engine of my mind
Now, these insects set in like poison
Inject their fever and move on
Of cheap heat, premeditated, less emotion
Calculated, slowly, as to draw the infection on
But two young hearts can never seem to last
Too fickle, fragile, thin as glass
So I'll search for flame in older arms
With their matches, find sparks of your love's warmth
Sick trick, sad ash, to make this season pass
They say the blacker the burn, the less it will last
If only I could fool myself just the same,
Because even cold hands can tell a dull flame.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 11:55 PM UTC
Now was it worth the wait?
Drifting in that killing time.
When you didn't know where to be
Not even a place to stand
Or where to go
To be with someone you didn't quite know
Holding hands under kerosine lamps
Smiling a grin bigger than any light
Down streets growing with life
Time frozen it seems like
Now is this worth your time?
Floating in that love wine?
Still confused about who you are
And if this is real
Now with someone who's still the same
Putting a ring on the finger of your hand
Wanting to share the same name
Time's to blame
You say it's been quite the wait
Been swimming, waiting for the sunshine
Sea of love still swallowing you up
Still with that special someone whose stayed by your side
Under a roof you can call a home
Now with kids all of your own
Time still keeping you young
Baby, time's won
Aug 30, 2011
Aug 30, 2011 at 1:42 PM UTC
The kerosine she
Left behind on my lips was
Something of a dream.
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 1:48 AM UTC
*The sky cries kerosine
when it watches us take
our lives and think of
suicide.
It cries kerosine when it
hears us call ourselves
worthless and relapse.
But it also cries tears
of joy the day we get
over ourselves and
pasts.
The day we walk with
our heads held high. The
day we walk with our
hearts full of pride. The
day our sorrows crumble
and die.
The sky sighs as it watches
us believe a little more in
ourselves. As we hold our umbrellas up to protect
our bodies from the fiery
red blazing flames.
And as we walk by the
river side saying apologies
to ourselves for the self
hate and the razor blades
we swallowed and ate after
cutting our own flesh* ~
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 5:46 AM UTC
two burns decorate my shoulder
due to drunken recklessness
one on my forearm
by a stubborn game of pain
but the second in the same spot
was not in ruckus or fury
it was born from being
terribly, terribly
empty
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 6:59 PM UTC
Insides on fire,
You light me up like kerosine
And I never thought it would
Feel So Good
To be burnt alive
Oct 4, 2017
Oct 4, 2017 at 12:12 AM UTC
"I'm okay."
"I'm okay."
"I'm okay."
Simple words.
As you say them over and over the syllables begin to distort.
They begin to dance lucidly through the white noise that fills my skull.
The words twist and drip through my teeth.
They slip past my lips like wine.
They fall upon hungry ears; ravenous for reason.
I am left alone with my static.
My silence.
Amongst cold coffee and soured cream.
My skin is goosebumps.
The tingle of the thunder's crack.
The caress of the mountain breeze.
The exhale of a lover against the base of your spine.
I cling to you like an island.
My bones, glass, beneath my skin.
Shifting.
My muscles turning from flesh to ash.
Crumbling underneath.
My body feels foreign.
No longer mine.
You hold me like a lost child.
A lost child who's family died long ago.
As if the love in my soul is the last of a spring almost dry.
The drips from your tap.
I am your last project.
Your last carrier dove.
You are my home now.
I will dig roots beneath your feet.
Roots deep enough to find the warmth in winter.
Strong enough to withstand the test of time.
A passion for you courses through my veins.
Kerosine on the embers that my heart once was.
A desire uncontainable.
A love unimaginable.
We are as strong as the Appalachian mountains.
The purist of waters.
The sweetest of honey.
These are the dreams that dance among the static.
In between the broken syllables and the lies on my lips.
But no, really. I'm okay.
"I'm feeling so small. It was over my head, I know nothing at all."
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 4:29 AM UTC
Masterful ownership, I am lost between cards, the green table, set and speckled, distracted by the colors and forgetful of the number, exploitive, love the spices, and aggressive, and tired of being bullied, fragrance chasers, chortling in remarks blase in cafe's I'm meager minded but with fortunate background, I am spoiled but somehow burst from the bubble, some sort of rodent stuck out of time, letting the chemicals do their work, like dousing a cheetah in kerosine, just most toxic and full of rage, spotted and dying, closer to living without restraint, devoid of taste, my fears overwhelm me, driving me, my own secufled
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 10:24 PM UTC
her warm eyes of
wonder and kind skin
kindle
a crackling aortic inferno
further fed
by a voice that feels
like water going down
but like a fireman
from Fahrenheit 451
sets my words aflame
with kerosine kisses
I can't and
I won't try
to ever tell you
what this is exactly
because we never really know
where we're growing
but this is different
this is painless
and it tastes like
nothing my tongue
has ever known
and it takes me to places
I've never been
I hadn't realized
just how parched I was
until she filled up my cup
as she poured out her heart
and I drank it down
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 6:56 AM UTC
some names will always taste
like they've been dipped in kerosine
specifically made
to make you burn
from the inside out
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 2:24 AM UTC
I stopped my pace, I let the time passed me by
To take a look of her face, she looks beautiful I can't lie
Lets rotate the clock needle to the opposite direction
To change what was wrong, what created the big friction
The little giggles she made
From the jokes I create
The little giggles she made
Now I stayed up late
Her little giggles I heard
Left me with no words
Her little giggles I heard
Helped me from getting hurt
Down in my mind so dark
She created a spark
I hope it will ignite the cold kerosine
To help the metal bird flying
Jan 10, 2021
Jan 10, 2021 at 2:17 PM UTC