"pumice" poems
Breathing fire, from below,
Spitting a molten soul skywards,
Flinging pumice, ash, and fear,
The angry Vulcan casts,
His ever darkening shadow cross,
As the timely reminder , of
The fragility of this existence.
© Nick Strong 2014
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC
Your eyes were a familiar town,
A ghost town I call home
The first time we kissed,
We tasted soil in each other's mouths,
We both smelled fire
And felt burning when our fingertips touched
We had dreams of a natural disaster –
The rainfall of ash and pumice
People screaming, temples collapsing
And we woke up remembering
What buried us
We lay in bed
My bones on your bones,
My skin against your skin
My hands shook like an earthquake
I asked you, "Did we not die like this?"
You kissed me, unafraid,
"Were we not born from this?"
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 10:10 PM UTC
I'm talking to pine trees
teetering on a brush fire--
they do not speak English,
needle whispers are of a foreign tongue.
Feet varnished by sap
clodden with traces and feel no pain,
You will not forget.
(It only rubs off with extra-virgin olive oil,
a pumice stone,
boiling water;
I had none.)
Later
toes slick and raw,
hands fleshy red in heat,
the ungraspable fresh veneer.
I let my fingernails grow out.
The forest burnt down in my eyes.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 11:45 AM UTC
It was always from the same breath
you were called both ***** and hen.
The cue from on the hoof words jarring.
They wanted to curtail your pride
to wrestle ambition,
chide even your Soliloquy.
By the soak of the covert
all she wanted to was wash
the dust from her feet,
proceeding to use a pumice
she recognised the endless toil.
Submitting to the widening silence,
her cochlea impressed -
the whisper of what it was to hear a stream,
the disciple's quest - now her inner strength :
wading courage, sharpened focus
the weathered course, she longed to know.
Tally Crane ,Oak and bream
the amble of time proceeded
mindful her shawl swept
towards a larger cycle .
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 3:36 PM UTC
Hershey, black satin, as long as my torso
Diamond green comforting eyes
Velveteen curious nose
Tongue like a pumice stone
Her elegant but waddling stride
Powerful, confident and territorial
Sitting like a queen on her throne
Cat of mine, mother to be
Tuxedo, black and white, bow tie and all
White sock covered feet like satin gloves
Long white elderly whiskers
He reminds me of Fred Astaire
Quick calculated light on his feet
Shy yet debonair
Patient, watchful and full of pride
Father to be
Oreo, friend and foe
White as snow, black face and tail
Large circular patches of black
Fearless fence and roof climber
Youngster full of mischievousness
Paws in the air, tummy exposed to the sun
Purring so loud she vibrates
Kitty of mine
Aug 1, 2010
Aug 1, 2010 at 6:14 AM UTC
for years I have felt of stone
pale, grey-veined marble untouched by bare hands
separated by barriers tangible and otherwise
my skin was lusting for the heat of humanity
I missed you the way a stillborn misses the intake of breath
until the day you invited me into your bed and
took a chisel to my heart and head
these cracks run deep
you can be found in the magma below my belly button
the pure pumice coming from between my lips
I may have jagged ridges with the power to cut
because I am viscous yet
may you dance through these fractures like water and soften my edges
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 2:25 AM UTC
Hands that look sunburned
at first blush
count the silent ticks of a cognitive clock
grasping and releasing in stilted syncopation:
one-two-three-five (must avoid the four)
Did I remember to lock the front door? Out
of bed—again—freezing feet tumble
down
into slippers
awaiting the circular inevitability. Again, again.
Pad, pad, pad:
light shuffling accompanies the one-two-three-five
pounding in the head; that mind ricocheted with worry—
worry about the front door, the evil intentions of four,
insidious germs and subsequent scrubbing-scrubbing-scrubbing
in bleach and Comet. Pad,
pad, pad to the front door.
It’s one hundred and thirty four steps, so take a baby-shuffle:
still avoiding the four.
Cold, unyielding brass **** Locked.
Deadbolt? Check. Creeping black.
Chain lock? Check. Crawling germs. Oh, god.
Pad, pad, pad to the kitchen.
Clorox-fume greetings in the sparkling sink
from twenty-three minutes before. Never twenty-four.
Clorox on the cracked fingers, blistering
out that imperceptible blackness I know it’s there
blackness choking, bleeding in the bleach.
Scrub brushes, pumice, and fingernail files
wear down the nubs where the blackness may hide.
“Shh” the steaming water soothes
as it stings, scalds. “Shh.” Burn it all out;
conclusion so comforting. So predictably round.
This is the last time I can do this tonight. Pad, pad, pad
back to the bedroom. Downey quilt beckons in lover tones,
pleading pillows nudge against that head, that infernal head
still panicking amongst the softness:
Did I remember to lock the front door?
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 2:14 AM UTC
Sky Afire
It started as a tendril snaked
And quickly caught my eye
That beckoned me to come partake
The bright majestic sky
From turquoise into indigo
And all the shades between
With molten lava spreading slow
As far as could be seen
With orange and corals juxtaposed
Against the deeper blues
And silhouetted trees in pose
Amid the great bamboos
The clouds were piled in tumbling flow
And darkened as they fell
To charcoal black, blood red aglow
At meeting with the swell
And as the skyflow met the sea
And seemed to melt within
The sea took on its vibrancy
And flow began again
And as the skyflood reached its peak
Engulfing and aflame
It seemed directly to retreat
As quickly as it came
The ashen grey began above
And slowly spread below
Till all was left in pumice drifts
Within its final glow
And now the show has ended
With the sky once more a sky
And the clouds and sea appended
For a witness such as I
3 Oct 2000
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
The winds of change blow the sands of time
In such a violent manner
They erode and smooth the scars
Left by careless pasts
Then cut deeper in new ways
New areas to be scarred
Like the 3-D mural of the
Grand Canyon, tattooed on my good friend's
Arm, which continually spat
The Colorado River as the tattooed member
Rested against the cold tile, draping over the
Side of the tub
The place my good friend gave up material want
For the spiritual punishment which she so believed in
And the winds of change blew the sands of time
Like a pumice stone scraping away
So-called offensive skin
As if an apology for being human
Acting as a cyclist backpedalling
To deny the cemented fact of what was done
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
"Are the gods angry?"
she said with a laugh
as Vesuvius rumbled
with warnings advance.
I cuffed her behind,
but gently, and laughed:
"Lady bring me more wine
for my morning repast."
I had sup'd with old Pliny
just the evening before.
Admiral of the fleet
anchored safely offshore.
My vineyards are fruitful,
a source of fine wines.
and the olives, when pressed,
make a spread that's divine.
My Villa is handsome,
and I own many slaves.
so you see I've no use
for their Jesus who saves.
The top of the mountain
disappeared in a blast
Our homes are laid siege to
with pumice and ash.
The women are screaming
I hear a child cry.
I hear prayers vainly offered
to an uncaring sky.
The air is quite thick
My lungs are oppressed.
My Villa is burning
along with the rest.
With a cloth on my mouth,
I race to the shore,
hoping, dear Pliny,
to see you once more.
I look on with horror
as burning stone blocks my path
I crouch by a wall
as my last moments pass.
* * * * *
The Archeologist tutted
"Well, who have we here?
"Clearly no slave
from this ring it appears."
" I am Lucius Flavius."
My Lemure would remind.
but I'm like a statue
and mute for all time.
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 5:10 PM UTC
On a bright and sunny day
On the 18th of May
An earthquake resulted in a landslide
That unleashed a massive force brewing inside
The eruption removed the upper 1,300 feet
The magma chamber burst- rock & gas blown at supersonic speed
Within 8 miles, all was instantly wrecked
With a shockwave so big, what could one expect?
As the north slope collapsed down
All life forms began to drown
Every tree in sight swept away
19 miles outward; a ruinous ashtray
Silence breaks as ash falls like snow
The once mature landscape now just an embryo
What had become a lifeless terrain,
Now shows us what 35 years can attain.
After the volcanic cataclysm
Biological legacies determine the pace of new ecosystems
The following colonizers proceed:
Lupines, pearly everlasting, alder shrubs, and fireweed.
The coniferous forest was replaced
The deciduous Alder trees won the race
The new forest attracts grasshoppers, birds, and ants
Larks, gophers, sparrows and deer mice take a chance
Out of 256 species alive prior to the eruption,
86 are now in production
20% of the surface is covered with grass and legumes
Struggling young trees that endeavor to bloom
Ecological gaps begin to fill
Strong ecosystems form, production is uphill.
Elk arrives to munch on grass and bark
The thick forests attract birds, like larks.
Fallen logs create nutrients and feed biofilm to the lake
Floating ecosystems now have plenty resources to take
Elevation affects the rate of recovery reports.
The higher the colder, which means the growing season is short.
The loss of trees means more room for sun
As the lake warms up, there’s increased production
More insects and bigger fish, like rainbow trout
Salamanders are scarce now, not many about.
Lupines deserve their own stanza, those purple legumes.
They help make a pumice landscape suitable for others to bloom.
Lupines create essential nutrients the pumice is low on
Other plants are thankful for the rare space to grow on.
All this information hopefully to inspire,
Life pulls through in situations most dire.
Mount Saint Helens’ destructive wake is seen clearly today,
The eruption that obliterated had also paved a way.
May 18, 2022
May 18, 2022 at 11:31 AM UTC
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Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 9:47 PM UTC
Plant your voice on the anvil. I write my name
in rust just as you in soot. And you
in skin. Riveted by flint. Coated by grit.
Send me on my way.
What I will find in the foundry
is slag. The husk of some steam shovel
lurching over asphalt. Rip my organs
from the mouth and bore into me.
Bellows amid sparks. Flame in columns.
There was a puddle I would stand
in to quicken the surge. Groping
wholeness in each crescent flare.
My family alone far away. Valley Forge
wet with orange. Tossing crumbs to ducks
from the path. I would join them.
My hands would split open crab.
We row to the dam’s lip and wait
for sturgeon, rocking. Pumice and sand.
Beat and grind and reduce me bare.
Tongue fumbling for the tip.
I think she would be proud of me.
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 15, 2011 at 3:48 PM UTC
“Why does the moon follow us?”
I asked my father
As we drove past beige houses
Mixing with white mailboxes.
I couldn’t see his face from the back seat
But I knew he smiled when I heard him
Laugh and shake his head.
“Honey, she’s following you,”
He said, and I looked out the window
Smiling at my new friend.
I was five.
Now I know that without the sun
The moon is for the blind to see
And that it orbits the earth
Not me
And it doesn’t chase cars down southern highways
It sits lonely in space
Surrounded by nothing,
Scientia potential est
Is what I’ve been told
In my own tongue –
And I agree.
Never have I felt stronger
Than when I am bathed in light –
Filling my pumice skin and crater eyes
Until I can happily walk around
With as much certainty as a human can.
That hasn’t happened yet,
But the day’s coming
I know it.
Yet I find myself wishing
The light immersing me
Was that of the moon,
Which cannot be,
How could it
When the moon only reflects
What the sun emits?
That knowledge doesn’t stop me from wishing
On the stars
I know to be dead ***** of plasma.
As a little girl I always slept with my window open
To let the dreams,
Made of fairies, roses, moonshine, and lullabies
Funnel through my ears
Into my empty head
In a stream of dust –
I had nightmares sometimes,
But every shadow is a product of light,
And I was happy.
In time I went to school,
Now I know of dreams and nightmares
What they are made of, what they are not –
But I don’t have them,
And I sleep with my window shut now.
Understanding is beautiful
Yet mystery is magical
And school takes magic and twists it
Until you’re ashamed for believing
In anything.
I want to learn, I yearn for it
Like my head does air –
But why must I be mocked
For listening to the five year old on my shoulder
Who whispers fantastic dreams
I forget upon waking, blinking, thinking?
Thinking and dreaming
One heads, the other tails.
I’ve been taught to imagine
Is to forsake thinking,
That dreaming is the rot
Causing intellect to atrophy
So I stopped talking to the moon
Because by then I had been taught
It couldn’t hear me anyway.
I want both,
And so I shall
Through fight, doubt –
The noose made of fear
Can be burned
And so it shall,
By the light of the moon,
My lovely friend,
Whom I know well,
And dream of often.
I hope she chose
The right person to follow.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 10:34 PM UTC
the blood of the women of my blood
stir under deep layers of earth
like cackling magma
churning through and by
like the arteries
of my flesh
moving
and burning
and exploding
like enraged volcanoes.
the words of the women of my blood
cool and harden--are dark and shining
like basalt or obsidian
we are the casual sort
something that shouldn't be confused
with softness
our tongues are tougher than pumice
and our mouths only shape
letters that chafe.
I am of fire like
my mothers before
me
pulsing
radiating.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 12:33 PM UTC
As for me, I chose the alternatives
To do what is right without the superlatives,
To love people without any threat
A choice too many have not made yet.
A loving but jealous and wrathful god?
Even those words put together sound odd.
If this omnipotence were on the level
Why not smite the heck out of the devil?
I never understood that stuff about Eden.
Why have just one tree off limits even?
To people who were basically children
Why was part of paradise ever forbidden?
Any parent will tell you about their kids
They would do exactly as those two did.
You couldn’t keep them away with a truncheon.
Those kids would have a ****** luncheon.
Oh, and what a self-righteous creep was He
To do what what he did to Job endlessly.
It has always sounded evil torture to me;
The work of a cloud-bound twisted bully.
Then for no reason anybody could ever tell
He created a son and then cast him into hell.
He let the Devil make a punching bag of Jesus.
This God creature seems to do what he pleases.
So what about this legend is so wonderful
That we heap money on priests by the basketful?
We create huge bejeweled palaces everywhere
And insist they are houses of God and swear
To visit them will make us all godly creatures.
Yet we demand no solid proof of those teachers.
If a car salesman delivered like that on a promise,
We’d take him out to and pound him into pumice.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 3:54 AM UTC
In a room among newspapers from far-away climes
like a tame animal like a marvelous man you love yourself
and sit on the edge
of the bed with your palms on your knees
or absolved of birth and death you stroke your pumice-stone
cheek
until the sun crosses the other side
next to the photograph of the happy child who is piddling on
a blue shore
Then every thing returns regroups
as though in a boiling fog in which things are mended
among the obscure plantations of chance And alongside
a woman carefully hangs out the clothes of the drowned lover and
speaks to them
the one who still seeks you in the black bones of the
butterflies
And while you wander lost through the mists of a powerful
manhood
past the spades left on the fresh molehill
or gaze at the swaying of the two stakes ****** into the shore
or lie down on the ground and the wind covers your face with
thistles brought who knows whence
a great sadness brings back the lunar landscape of her tired
shoulders
and there are no more words but her whisper are things which
settle
everywhere filling the ripped silence of the train's screech
her whispers are the water gathered over the prints of her
soles after the last rain
but a simple turn of the key is enough for you to be able to hear
the slow flowing of time by your dampened socks
or the heavy breathing of the roots
and again you dream the blue shore at the end of the river
on which we ruminate our enchanted abandonment
Gellu Naum, Vasco da Gama and other pohems, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
you stopped visiting the ocean after your brother died
so we drove inland, instead, that day
and found the pit of old bunkers
left to decay
from a more actively
apocalyptic age
and, inside, the
eschewal vision of
tinned food,
concrete pillars,
liquid flesh
warm comfort in disintegration,
emerald concavities that lace the sky
we considered stealing some **** but just drove on back instead,
leave history to history
if you stack the boxes, there will be more space, you-
yeah, just like that.
the chairs have no back, sorry, so you'll have to be careful.
sorry, i just have to deal with,
yeah, the drain pipes broke again,
it now decants into the living room, all
dammed up with paper mache and static
so uh
make yourself some tea if you have to
-ah, no, sorry, i didn't mean to be curt
it's just,
there's no time
but stay, anyway, please
it gets lonely at night
all boarded windows and
old casements
till in the end you're just
embracing a
damp ****** guilt
just to pass the time
with a forgiveness complex
do you think you'd do it?
they make you wear their shirt, and take a photo,
but they give a free ice-cream at the end.
i mean, it doesn't cost you anything,
nothing palpable, anyway
remember that time we drove inland?
and found that petrified forest,
buried in basalt and pumice?
we walked among treetops, near the old crater lake
and
skipped stones
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 7:09 AM UTC
the
faint odor of soup cans
and well water wafted through the pumice stone
of recycled air and a faint hum. you thumb through the turbulence of your heart's bone
as it fractures. you catch birds to mock turtles.
with no alice.
the sun adds this... true moons and canopies
soft shouldered earth and dead moths. we're taught
but more lost. the sea chops
so the horizon is a great wave
on a seahorse.
cozy stars applaud. a wisp of pure force.
you're uncontained.
you might be immortal;
but how could you live
with that ?
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 1:59 PM UTC
cracked tealight
candle fissures,
molten chasms in a
waxy cradle.
dip your fingers,
capped, hard,
cooled pumice-wax.
peel your new
finger-mould,
digit capsule.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 10:38 PM UTC
(By Brook Ilges and
Sverre G. Holter)
There's fire in it. Chestburn. Lungs
And lava, heart in heat; blood
Boiling. When I move,
Steam escapes from between
My ribs.
They cage a dragon's mouth.
*Our edges cauterize
Unable to stabilize this searing
Electric firestorm
We coalesce into colors
Streaming through our nerve
Endings
Pulsing the rhythm of ages
Into the space between our gazes
Your scalding hide sets us apart
A rough reminder of the scars that
Stitch beneath*
Sometimes.
Sometimes I find myself.
Sometimes I find myself
Biting down on
Whatever is left of myself
After the vulcano sighs and
Withdraws its black; its
Ashes; its pieces of planet's
Core, just to hold onto
Something with
Something.
Sometimes I wonder if
The memories of surgical
Sutures are all that keep me
From falling apart.
Take my mouth; I'm saving
My hands for
My heart.
*Darkness falls, low light lingers
I trace the confines of your cage
The lock rusted and still
A key exists, the heart resists
Too damaged to offer naught but numb
Cutting through pumice walls
Fiery thorns thick, penetrate with ease
Such paltry designs of recovery
I'm fading fast
While you still burn.*
And while one of us fades burning,
The other burns fading, and all is as
It all should be, as two stars
Decide not to form a solar system, but
Instead to brush themselves into a painting
Of a dream that a child that has yet to
Become just dreamed; awoke from
And whispered: "I want them to
Be my mother and
Father..."
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
pumice
peat
mulch
humus
leaf mold
clod
loam: a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.
marl: Geology. a friable earthy deposit consisting of clay and calcium carbonate, used especially as a fertilizer for soils deficient in lime.
argil: clay, especially potter's clay.
bole:
noun
1.
any of a variety of soft, unctuous clays of various colors, used as pigments.
2.
a medium red-brown color made from such clay.
clutch
kaolin
loess: a loamy deposit formed by wind, usually yellowish and calcareous, common in the Mississippi Valley and in Europe and Asia.
slip
till: a stiff clay, a glacial drift of clay, sand, gravel, and boulders
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 1:01 PM UTC