"phoenixes" poems
i see the words floating on
message boards or perched
upon the lips of jocular hypocrites
double-standards that demand
sensual chastity and virginal sexuality
in endless iterations of irony
the concussive
monosyllabic words
slung like stones
cast like arrows
****
*****
*****
all labels for
women possessed of
the courage to pursue
their own passion
once upon a time a
Nazarene insisted a ********** had
more integrity than a rich
statesman throwing self-serving parties
so tell me why so
many Christian politicians
propagate patriarchal notions of depravity
in blanket attempts to regulate
the bodies of women
if being anti-choice was really
about preventing abortions
why do rich right-wing conservative
Republicans spend all their time
and money picketing free clinics
when the solution lies in comprehensive
****** education universal healthcare
complimentary birth control
and comprehensive child support
don't dare use the reprehensible
rhetoric of pro-life unless you're
at once anti-war
and anti-death penalty
riddle me this
what pray tell is the
difference between a jealous
religious misogynist
and a secular sexist
it's rather simple actually
while the former bases his
slut-shaming on the edicts of
a two thousand year old letter to
the Corinthians inconspicuously
sandwiched between a celebration of
love and a section on speaking in tongues
the latter’s learned behavior is
birthed by a hyper-masculine culture
grounded in dominance
either way we await the day
when wild women raze
these ideologies
with torches before
rising like phoenixes
from the ashes of
decimated passages
dismissed by intellectuals
as archaic and outmoded
deaf blind and dumb to
the vestiges of modernity
that sap unscientific
philosophies of their potency
and render them utterly obsolete
in their wake
these proud women
erase the hate
from words like
****
*****
*****
and reclaim equality
with a far more
comprehensive term
feminist
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
I name all of my lovers after months now
and all roads lead to August and
the Roman cities we’ve burned —
how she walked on crumbling streets as I held the matches —
this poem is a page for burning at its tip:
a lone match, scalding — a firelit kiss
but the flames have always been a hypnotic sight
like a woman perched in your sunlit bed —
her hair, red as flames licking my neck,
red as love that bleeds on itself;
it leaves a stain on pretty things.
Now her skin has silk sheets burning away
like banners in a Roman cathedral,
her half-breath kisses, dying — now embers,
tainting my dress black where her lips had staked a claim.
Now her touch is wildfire crawling on my skin
and I am a wounded doe — waiting. waiting.
waiting.
The only world I know burns to the ground
before my very eyes
and we are no phoenixes, darling; all we do is burn.
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 6:26 AM UTC
Happy days are here forever to stay,
Always by our side find them we may,
Parting ways is never a thing to say,
Practically we are fitting each day,
Yolk is this of ours, getting prepared.
Best of both worlds are we two,
Imagine a life together with me,
Rid yourself of that negativity,
This space here is only for our love,
Happiness will always come on,
Delayed it may be but surely it comes,
Always remember that I'm here,
You wanted a mother again, I'm here as your lover.
Thanks for sharing your life with me,
Over the decades of my caring, healthier you will be.
Yes, we shall complete each other,
Of phoenixes, you will be a mother,
Up next is just our Love & only Love.
Part ways never with me,
Overcome health issues,
Overcome them with me,
Just absorb all of my love,
And just imagine my Love.
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 12:49 PM UTC
Round a turn of the Qin Fortress winds the Wei River,
And Yellow Mountain foot-hills enclose the Court of China;
Past the South Gate willows comes the Car of Many Bells
On the upper Palace-Garden Road-a solid length of blossom;
A Forbidden City roof holds two phoenixes in cloud;
The foliage of spring shelters multitudes from rain;
And now, when the heavens are propitious for action,
Here is our Emperor ready-no wasteful wanderer.
2.7k
when I say the wind blows
you already know
but how do the leaves portend
emerald on the end
or grasping to the limb?
If the Love is Lost, when?
feelings were ample
yet, when unplugged they limp lame
sentiment in lieu of visceral slanguage;
Who needs a Heart when a record can be Broken?
i think therefor iThoughts
Depress into cracked lead
and bled red into inkwell;
gun shots have more potent stocks
tragically hip to be so square ingots
what gracious melodies and languid lives
battered idioms with only one just is to bear
how Sad their flirtatious Ness affair
with Pain must fin' ish and putrefy,
those believers in Death will die
hail a Hashtag worthy of
Octothorp
for phoenixes are found everyday
prostrate your Poetry for posthumous
consumption
apply the alembic of alteration
and
Heal our Hashtag heathen history
or
**** It
Hate the Hashtag
that's Life!
#love #life #sad #pain #depression #thoughts #death #sadness #heartbreak #lost
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
Metal:
A music genre
that speaks of
The soul of withered flowers
the soul of warriors
The soul of fallen ones
The soul of phoenixes
The soul of survivors
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 9:38 AM UTC
echoes in my mind
like aches
but merely echoes
I am getting better at being
alive
but that is only because
I am so full of dead things
to remind me of what I now
have the option
not to be
to be
is my decision
yes
I am locking it in
to be
that is my final answer
until my choice is taken from me
stardust is the basic component
of all the parts and pieces
I am so full
of dead things
I was born with fourteen ghosts
excluding the stars that we rise
from the ashes of
like phoenixes
excluding the animals
that gave rise to us
excluding names
and faces
and friendships
and homes
fourteen ghosts
and they say we are born innocent
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 9:54 PM UTC
you're not half bad
at your candlewick blossom snuffing -
got your braggart game up loud
in your repetitive silence
beaming at the doting strange phoenixes
darting in between your
bending fingers,
snatching up my flames
in their return to their
static progress on
life skills that are lingering
far too long
in the forging stage.
baby, baby
please -
tell me those aren't
your voices
slithering up the tall
columns of echoes,
wailing out
overzealous,
too pompous
orations.
nevermind -
my mind's pretending
to sleep somewhere marvellous
in this mind-field
of
the littlest
pink *******
trying to act like
i don't suddenly feel
as if
the tomorrow
up next
will be bringing
a different star.
so i just sit here -
pointing my toes at occurrences
that i really wish had've gone down
a whole lot more
differently,
praying that
by some miracle,
tossing a bit of dust
from my careful bag
(paired with the experimental
levitational practices
i keep doing in my free time)
will somehow
make room
for all these
eggshells you won't stop
throwing onto the floor.
too many have found me
playing patty-cake
under that possessed streetlamp
down Hardy,
the one that always seems to flicker
when i walk by -
snatching back its potency
just long enough
to highlight the
unsolicited red apple ritual
happening in my
cheekbones.
i've got a game to catch.
not trying to be the dawdling girl,
throwing all of her hopes
into the air,
willing the destined one
to be something that will
cradle us both.
you gotta be on this
wick snuffing trip
searching for something a little more than
a butt-tossing buddy.
better get a pack of matches
and try to beat me to it,
'cause i'm putting up my fire-red can
and the light's gonna follow me out.
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 12:21 AM UTC
His eyes feel like mad August;
his breath, hot like hope.
there’s oil in his insides,
and fire twisting in his veins.
He glances past the striped tent,
which rises and swells with wind.
He sees a cluster of trees drinking stars,
as whispers usher through their contorted alabaster marionettes.
His childhood was a stranded candle
arrested in bruise-colored nights.
The lone light writhed, howled;
but soon was strangled in wax.
He always planted those volatile reminiscences
in the soil next to his rotten garden heart.
and felt those sickly seeds turn crimson,
as each parasite boasted its own pulse.
His skin kindles coliseums
of gasoline-soaked bones.
Slumber-sunk fireflies keep a hollow flame going,
as shadows melt among the incendiary waves of his hair.
He meanders into the light-studded circus,
with a drop of sweat wobbling on his nose.
The spectators fasten his flesh with their stares-
and he slowly peers out at their silhouettes wriggling in the twilight.
His torches burst to life.
Scalding red veils crackling out of existence;
and immediately smoke tugs at his lungs.
His body hisses as he brings the chaos to his teeth.
A charring succession of infernos singe his throat.
Relics of his past heaves upward,
those tears, souvenirs of lonely Septembers, illuminated
between the feathers of phoenixes.
And that pillar of flame suspended above his lips,
cradled by deep liberating exhalations,
collapses within itself.
And the Night applauds.
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
You built a house out of dominoes and Jenga blocks, and it still took you by surprise when it all came shattering down around you.
In all fairness, it’s been a long time coming.
In all fairness, you caught pieces, from time to time.
But you wanted to hold onto something, because everything you ever knew only told you that the only way to make a good thing was to burn the bad thing down, rebuild it from the ground up. And you just wanted to be able to be fixed.
People are not houses. They do not survive the fire or the burn or the smell of acrid smoke. They can not be reborn like phoenixes from the ashes.
You flirted with denial longer than you should have. You let the streams of I’m fine It’s okay That’s great Everything’s good. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m alright. I’m fine, really. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. bleed into and over each other until your lies clashed a little too close, and people started to peer in with suspicion.
Rule 1 of denial: deny.
Rule 2: lie until you believe it.
Rule 3: don’t let anyone suspect.
Rule 4: minimize the damage.
Your house fell into rubble with a phone call at the end of a good day.
Because it wasn’t really a good day, just a good enough day, because you ate lunch and dinner, because your hands shook a little bit, because you had only a small headache. Because things weren’t worse, and they could have been.
You aren’t fine.
You’re breathing, and you’re going through the motions. And you don’t intend to die any time soon.
You’re existing, but you aren’t fine.
A stack of dominoes, and a pile of haphazardly stacked Jenga blocks. So build back a complete house, without the collapse. Add in glue, or safety pins, rope. Take a step back, sometimes, observe. When you see a fissure, hold steady and fix the crack. Do not avert your eyes.
You are not fine.*
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 11:25 AM UTC
All furies, pharaohs, phalanxes
Will bow before the one
Whose fountain flows from phoenixes
To bathe him in the sun
For what is time if not his throne
And what is God but just a word
To thine whose kingdom shines against
Existence's absurd
And most perplexing paradoxes
Of dualities of man
And its sealed Pandora's boxes
Of reality's demand
Upon the lonely lucid dreamer
Who has seen beyond desire
In a world of Disney Movies
Where such fairy tales expire
To a hungry belly's hatred
And the fear of thirsty lips
And taking more than your fair share
Of poison apple trips
May 12, 2017
May 12, 2017 at 3:44 AM UTC
Each year, we arrive at the same knot of woods, having drawn the same straw.
We grasp, trembling, at what we imagine to be certain death:
A leaf, edges curved up, orange crudely splashed across green.
But would you spare a second thought for the falling leaf that subsumes your life?
Think. Why would the world continuously dash herself
Into pieces, render herself to ash, if she were not made of
Such stuff as phoenixes? Nature goes up into flames each year
With little to no ado, and heals herself without fuss.
Leaves throw themselves from great heights not in pursuit of ruination but of
Revival. Year after year after year we are asked this much:
Allow me to unfurl the fist with which you are clinging to this tree.
Comfort lies in confiding, confessing, and conceding. There is no need to be
Stronger than the Earth’s heart when she is offering it up
To you so singularly. Grant yourself this: that she wants you to
Smile and shine and grow.
Do you fear your fate in this moment? You misinterpret.
The blameful breeze you imagine you feel is, in actuality,
Earth’s unremitting whisper, pressed into your skin:
“Do as the leaves do. Follow, and fall. You are forgiven.”
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 11:52 AM UTC
the desk drawer was open, extending an invite,
cheap blue handle scissors, easy see, on top,
robbed of excuses, went around the house, all my
personal goods, mission oriented, trimming away
loose threads wherever they were hiding in my life
no expert in love, for sure, but struck by you people
linking love and dying, over and over, like they are
hyphenated, siblings, separated twin children, that
long to communicate, checking each other out on the
internet anonymously, cause these two linked in ways
not understood, loosely tied, a threaded linkage, can you
please explain?
(mysterious)
is loved only fully realized,
when it phoenixes?
burnt, slowly agonizing,
arisen, resurrecting,
is it one cell endless
dying, re-splitting?
Paul calls,
asking:
“and you wonder why we, why you,
why I am still crazy after all these years?”
12:04am
Wed Sep 9
plague year
Sep 9, 2020
Sep 9, 2020 at 8:33 AM UTC
Where mountins are tall and river are wide,
Where mermaids swim and faries hide,
Where princesses live and dragons roar,
Where spirits dance and phoenixes soar,
Where everyone's happy and no one cries,
Where there is no pain and dreams dont lie,
I don't live in that world of fantasy,
That world of fantasy lives in me.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 10:50 AM UTC
It happens on the banks of Hydaspes
No bird that lives has seen it thus unfold
Except the Vulture: stolen memories
The egg is laid, now upwards as you’re told!
To cliff’s edge flock, and there prepare to die!
Our Master calls us with him to go down
As flames go out the Phoenixes shall cry
All birds of Earth with Lord of theirs shall drown
A vortex made of joyful cawing beaks
They spiral splendidly into the sea
And back where tears of Hydaspes shall leak
A chick is born, a Monarch soon to be
In awe I gaze upon him, so sublime
Alerion! Our King for all of time
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 3:58 PM UTC
I can't tell who ruined us
perhaps it's foolish to think
that it's not over
not yet cause
we built a story and
called it home
Though maybe there were two stories
and we were on different floors but
when the whole house crumbled
we still ended up laying there
on the dirt
together
Phoenixes ready to
live and love again
even after you covered us in oil and I lit the match
Aug 6, 2016
Aug 6, 2016 at 1:29 AM UTC
*I do not complain the slow singe
Of sun above our heads, nor
The blue berserker which is before us,
A thing of beauty and treachery,
I do not mind the moisture, the salinity,
Beads of sweat, eloping with the spray,
Diaphanous and are one, escaping us,
Departing into thin air.
I would trade all energy, the distance
Of this journey, the labors of our feet,
Just to witness you, the black bird
Of brows I love, surveying the horizon,
Those teeth of linear pearl, or the red
Gates of kiss immortal, all risen
From the summery sshh of heat.
There's nothing that would equal
The squinting of your eyes, those
Thinning of the stars, the doubled
Supernova, which now are phoenixes
That are not born, burned, nor are revived,
But carry death, my death, my only,
My life.*
© 2015 J.S.P.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 6:19 AM UTC
It spun and fell
to earth to dwell
it's divine wings broken
blooded and forsaken
and tears fell from it's eyes
growing forests of forgiveness
Looking at the choked skies above
it watched that all that it loved
all the kind all the hope
fade in the deaths of his kin
nothing could it do
fire had ended it's legions
Picking up it's sword of justice
holding out it's slender hand
called for phoenixes day
a prayer for the calm
vowing to stay here
and to do no harm
It Dwells in the forest of forgiveness
in the realms of dreams
it's silver amour
still adored
and the city of God
still deep within it's heart
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 6:27 AM UTC
For once, my soul is silent.
Absent of the familiar griffins & phoenixes that ravage & terrorize
my painted mind...
For once, my soul is silent.
Drinking in the muted opinions
of this colorless world
& allowing its comfortable tides
to turn me a dull grey.
The blue skies
that once lined my lungs
have now faded,
Replaced by spray-painted nimbus.
The 4 suns orbiting my Cordibus
have betrayed their axes.
Now dragged down
by the weight of the very air
that once danced in my being,
Sinking to the singing earth
that will one day
shield my burning bones,
I await my birth into a new existence.
For once, my soul is silent.
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 12:18 PM UTC
we do not touch, but i still know
we're phoenixes
next time, we'll get it right
next time, i'll write your name and scream your name and love you until the farthest star's light finally makes it to earth and dies out quietly
like the milky way is in your ribs
and your breath, your carcinogens
is existence, is the only galaxy i'll ever begin to fathom
only beginning, for there are not enough light years to
uncover the breadth and depth of your immutable soul
we will be beacons
everlasting flecks of consequence
reflecting in pools of young lovers
when the earth as we know it
is no longer in service
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 11:50 AM UTC
I am encapsulated in a cocoon of pain,
it runs through my veins –
my blood is oxygenated with sorrow.
I clutch a cigarette between my middle and index fingers,
the only thing I’ve touched so intimately since.
The smoke that trails into my lungs
blackens my insides,
ensuring I no longer have to refer to the darkness inside of myself using a metaphor.
Why should I care for a body I don’t want to inhabit anymore?
I am littered with scars,
from my metal companion –
a friend when I was no longer loved by all.
A fiery soul burned out,
like the cigarette that I wish to be infinite.
But phoenixes resurrect after they burn down in flames
- I always knew I was not human.
Maybe the heat I felt nipping the inside of my skin,
since I was an infantile girl
was preparing me for the flames that have now engulfed me,
making me question:
do I want to live or do I want to die?
But my favourite bed time stories were the ones about
the princesses that saved themselves,
and their animal companions that could bring themselves back to life.
Little did I know I would be both.
Little did I know
I was a princess and a phoenix
all in one.
Feb 24, 2018
Feb 24, 2018 at 8:09 AM UTC
Lets hide my heart in the valley of ashes
where now she belongs till phoenixes day
sit snug in the winged arms of dragons kind
I promised we would never leave you behind
remember my eyes in silver moonlit mist
think me as man, the one that you kissed
your breath will be my breath
my blood will beat in your veins
as my heart will beat for yours
in this communion of flames.
For when you take a dragons heart
he'll take your own for it's treasure
and not in a thousand years
could you match their measure
For the love of dragons
can be selfish and cruel
and magic they wield
can be directed at you.
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka neonSolaris
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 6:09 PM UTC
Phoenixes tears fall
Burn, Like fire from the rain
Power in weakness
Mar 17, 2018
Mar 17, 2018 at 6:45 AM UTC