"torched" poems
Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.
Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.
Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.
Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.
As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.
A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.
Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013
Jan 29, 2013
Jan 29, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
A Serotinous Pine there,
Where winter snows soak into thirsty soil but relentless summer sun bakes motionless
Every plant a tinder held close to conflagration,
in a season's Russian roulette of forest fire.
This pine seals precious seed away from every spring’s promise,
lest burning destroys every one.
Only searing heat during torched consumption triggers the last gentle act,
At the knife’s edge of apocalypse itself,
opening cones of seeds.
Fluttering down to new life on the other side of time.
Tiny bright green amid black ashes.
Swimming Penguins
Birds evolved to fly in ocean.
Wings to flippers, feet stepping clumsily from water.
Yet eggs must still nest, their babies still breathe.
Safety is the very precipice of existence, on bitter ice at 60 below,
Sheltering their young clustered from blistering winds,
fasting from sustenance,
While heaven’s glorious Aurora flame silently over their winter dreams.
So what then are we, on This Earth?
Cerebral Creatures, Storytelling Animals.
Minds created to sense spiritual constructs.
Living is the method of our creation,
Sheltering each other from inherited trials
With contrived joys and sufferings distracting each other
from the soul freezing fearful cold of the Empty Void
And consuming fire of electric chaos.
In the End, our sacrificing gift for our children
is God.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 1:37 AM UTC
Social chaos metered out through tiers of population stung
By indiscriminate battle wrought lifeblood, incessantly, is wrung.
Why so the need for Assad’s torch, your Syria so needlessly debauched ?
Nameless causes fuel the fire, Shiite, Sunni intervention. Hezbollah and al Qaeda spew
Vindictiveness to streets of rubble, Toxic, killing vapours stew.
Misery to gasping children, horror in the dying eyes….
Condemnation points it’s staff to you, Assad, where vile blame now lies.
Why so the need for cities torched, Damascus needlessly debauched ?
Inevitably the missiles cometh, raining incandescent death and blast,
International righteousness throws intervention’s unknowns vast.
Why so this need for man debauched, Your Syria, once so beautiful, now scorched ?
Marshalg
Pukehana
7 September 2013
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 4:47 PM UTC
In the worst of times, martyrs will march barefooted into foreign lands
To toil its earth with flesh and sweat and blood
They jaunt north to south searching for milk and honey
and gold coins to put in their empty pockets
They stop to find out that they cannot walk barefooted
For the road is nothing but thorns and hot sand that scorch the feet
The merciless air is aloof and condescending
These people, they suffered
for their skin cracks in the winter and burns in the rain
Their tongue aches from speaking a different language:
voices turned into an unfathomable cadence
Frail skin torched like a hot tar to tissue paper
leaving only blackened soot
They come home with a dry mouth and scarred heart
These heroes will look up above into the cold night sky
to look for inkling of stars that guided them
For there is nothing sweeter than to bring food back home
To where hungry mouths and empty hands suffer in pain
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 6:09 AM UTC
From day one he was trouble
His parents knew on sight
Their bundle of pure joy and bliss
Was somehow, just not right
It wasn't in his nature
To be part of a gang
He like to be off by himself
He liked things that went bang
He was troubled in his school years
Never getting real good marks
He didn't get along with other
He was burning caps and making sparks
But when this boy found fire
Well, then....his world became real small
Never mind the big explosions
He would go and burn them all
Small fires set in dumpsters
Behind the shops, by where he ran
He'd set fire to the garbages
While he trapped a cat inside the can
He progressed on up to buildings
Made that jump, in one big way
He torched a crack house, all abandoned
Buy using gas and old, dry hay
But, the thrill was not a keeper
It wore off as fast as it arrived
He had to extend the feeling
That made his body feel alive
He knew to see his fires
He would have to volunteer
First he would go set them
Then, help put them out...I fear
It was a stroke of pyro genius
He'd set them and he'd put them out
He'd learn what gave them trouble
And he'd give them more without a doubt
He never killed another
Never burnt a persons home
He always set his fires
Where buildings always stood alone
They caught him late September
He'd burned a building late one night
It was supposed to be abandoned
But, was full of squatters, out of sight
The picture, it was famous
A hippie shaking someone's hand
It was on the front page of the paper
And it was shown through out the land
A fingerprint was lifted
A switch, that burned, not like it should
And from there, it was no problem
To lock this boy away for good
He was sent away to prison
He was gonna die there, bet on that
And on his first day in that prison
He saw an old man, who just sat
Sitting in the corner
by himself, no one around
Sat a man, all old and wrinkled
Lips were moving, but no sound
Came forth from this man's mouth,
his lips all cracked and dry,
You could stand right there and listen
And hear nothing if you tried...
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.
in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.
they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.
we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.
you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.
flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
His heart a setting desire
A holy man on fire
The ashes from his clothes hover overhead
Tarnished dry rain attached to eyelids
Blinding the ones admiring
He could've been loved
His demons were not friends
A lighter was no different
He screams in tortured relief
His body empty caressing the ground
A entity formed through headaches and torn garments
His need for her was never finished
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 6:53 PM UTC
Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.
Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
1.
white chapel on a hill
sheep dot rugged, earthy slopes
ruminate on warm, sun-kissed dale
endless lines and lines of verdant tones
late afternoon sun slanting
behold, jaune compassion
alfalfa ocherous leans willowy in wind
distance of silence yearns on
afternoon shadows lie within majestic vales
powder-blue ranges in 3D tiers
shadowy rifts, like a painting out of heaven
lone tree not alone, reaches up
blinding turns and rust-coloured bends, twisty trails
two on horseback, apples for sale
reservoir as a hold all for all
brown mud is where redemption lies.
2.
sun dips away, out of reach
beyond the eye's catch
step out car
feel the ping of silence, deeply-alive zing
crowd in and then,
into the slot of torched horizon
the orange world slips . . .
S T, 19 May 2013
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 6:29 AM UTC
I know this foreign method
made my throbbing veins its home
'cuz the familiar's not familiar
and I'm not fine
lest I'm messed up on
wine.
And 9/10 of all the times
I've tried to crack a smile
since I lost you have
turned out as half-assed lies.
I wander streets, worn out,
while I wonder where you are
and what you're thinking about while
you drive down Henderson...
I'll try to dry out
from time to time
but fall back into bouts
internal I'm interred in
eternally--and I'll never win them.
I'll. Never. Win them.
Not without...
Sorry...
I meander through months while
you walk through my mind
--and I'm glad if you're happy?--
but you were quite angry
with me that night I took
and torched our collection
of 5 years' shared memories
QUITE ANGRY
with me.
And the things you said were mean
but you meant them.
And you were right
About how wrong I was
how bad I am,
and how I taste
like lemon lies
on the tongue.
You were right.
And I'm drunk.
And sad and sorry and selfish
and stupid and absorbed by a
salted skyline of cold, purple steel
every night.
It *****
You teach kids for a living,
about the age of 9.
Me? I try to dry out
now and then, time to time,
but it's hard.
And you're far.
And I'd still come if I could,
but it's hard
following this heart
when it's buried
at the confluence
of the Red and Assiniboine
Rivers.
Beneath The Forks...
And that heart? Like the ground above it,
it's covered
with ****** commercial architecture
and the clothing of bureaucracy,
but ****
we had fun there.
Didn't we...?
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 1:47 PM UTC
our love was a wildfire, creeping, powerful and fiery like no other passion.
our love was a wildfire, dangerous, it destroyed the relationships in its wake
our love was a wildfire, engulfing hearts and minds, leaving nothing but tragedy.
our love was a wildfire and you didn’t believe in the rain, every flower, every lust-lined letter we spoke.
our love was a wildfire that ignited with the friction of our lips crashing like waves over and over again.
our love was a wildfire and the trees we hid in turned to ash.
our love was a wildfire and I’ll never forget the day your eyes froze over.
our love was a wildfire and you kept the embers turned to rage.
our love was a wildfire and I fueled your flame before I torched you with it.
our love was a wildfire and the scars you bear will never heal.
our love was a wildfire and I wish it had burned us alive.
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 3:58 PM UTC
And they call it puppy love
just like a trojan horse
a gift sent from above
only, in the end, to be torched
You long to be longed for
desire to be desired
it's the illness with no cure
a 'strength' to take you higher
Advertised by society
it promises you everything
abundant in variety
an agreement sealed with a ring
There's a reason they call it 'falling'
As what goes up must come down
so don't tell me you had no warning
when love leaves you dead on the ground
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
A harbinger of life and death
He walks the sky
Carried by her breath
From above his many arms reach the earth
They beat rocks down
Carve waterways
And raise earthly pillars
From the sun he brings color
Captured in his work
Down, Down in the leaves
His gift to her
When her lungs are deep and shouts coarse
His shadow is dark
The land lost in premature night
Interrupted by angry light
On these dull nights with sullen color
Life is ruptured
And the blood of torched nature
Swallows her
When her voice is gentle and breath still
His works are thoughtful and cautious
Gifts numerous and precious
And she’s alive
Lost words capture the light
Of the ancient giant
Making the beautiful
Visible to the earthly soul
His touch like the heart
Strong and warped by passion
Imperfect and earnest
And dictated by cyclic motion
Wild and Eternal
The Heart of Nature
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
Do you remember when I told you
I didn't like you
I teased you for what felt like hours
But were most likely only minutes
Do you remember when I called you
All those mean names
I'd laugh and laugh as you sat and stared
We both knew you weren't going anywhere
Do you remember when I cried
In front of you for the first time
We both realized it was only hate
That gave me such terrible pain
Do you remember that time you told me
Purple was my color
I wore it the next day
What was I thinking
Or maybe I wasn't
Do you remember the first time
I held your hand
So smooth but rough
Gripped perfectly in mine
Do you remember the time
I told you I liked you
The tables were turned
Torched and burned
Leaving me with that ache and pain
Do you know how it was
To be rejected
To be unloved
Do you remember when we became
Super fantastic friends
Of course let the sarcasm
Slowly sink in
Do you remember when I told you
Go for what you want
And I wanted to hear
I wanted to believe
All you wanted was
Me
Do you remember when we stopped
And nothing felt the same
Did you feel it too
That miserable drowning pain
Did you really even care
Did you even want me back
I'd tell myself no
Anything different might be a bigger blow
Do you remember when I told you
How I really feel
When I proclaimed my love
My stupid fantasy of
Us together
Forever
Of course you don't
Because I won't tell
I would never be so stupid
To fall for a king
When I know
I'll never be his
Queen
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 3:35 PM UTC
In a heartbeat,
we were forged.
We adhered well...
Like bone to sinew.
But alas...
Furious is the blaze
in our hearts we torched.
In a blink all is lost...
Like early morn's dew.
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
Full Moon
Barefoot; each step sinking in mud
splashes of rain marry with
crimson drops in a puddle
of stormed waves
from an opened heaven
She kneels to the ground
simultaneously glancing
left, right, behind
cheeks blushed, her soul falling
as teardrops - her lowest ebb.
Ripping her cotton dress
she replaces blood soaked rags -
it’s been six days.
This war within herself
at only twelve years of age
Every nineteen days
her body a vessel; a period
of girlhood abruptly ends,
womanhood demurred.
Each & every month
persecuted;
Jesus nailed to a cross.
Amidst war-torn streets
fleeing torched homes
civil war displacing
orphaned sisters –
*****
As militants continue to
prevail over children’s
innocence
Washing her sin away
red body fluids disperse
in mud, rain, water, soil -
her reflection lost
alongside any remaining dignity
On those same knees
Badriyyah pleads with God
to no longer bring forth
the fertility of conception
each cursed month.
Congolese civil wars
scraped away landscapes
Mother Nature
scraped away internal walls
& month after month
after month after month
this period endures
& a child of the night
stays hidden from sight.
© Sia Jane
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC
I feel like a truck driver on a deserted highway
But stuck in like this dark hole and I am going no where I feel like the highway is dead with no living thing in sight like its my own type of hell, all I see is dark ahead of me and sad things stuck in my mind, the thing is I don't know where I'm going, I feel like there is no reception
Because I feel so alone, head lights flashing
But still the dark surrounds my dark travil into this hell, when will I come to a city with life?
When will I come to flashing lights where am I going do I just turn off? Shut my self off?
Say good bye? Travel this highway alone until I reach my safe spot away from my dark torched
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 9:41 AM UTC
I am a broken man
Broken beyond repair
Fallen deep into despair
Torched to ash like a straw man
I am a broken man
Crushed into fine shiny powder
Fragments of a ruined wonder
Now feeling empty like the Morrigan
Tempted to take the Scythe for the Hammer
I chained myself in desperation
A fools decision for a reparation
Death in turn I hunger
For life is a sweet ardor
The bitter sweet taste of reconnaissance
The salt and spice of resilience
'Tis what a broken man yearns with fervor
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 9:19 PM UTC
In the midweek of twelves months I torched blunts and choked on wet smoke and chamomile tea.
Fretting the niggling giblets of a queasy disrememberance of a sober stroll through your tossed hair salad.
I managed to mangle the marvelous gross lust of our impending
delirium. i farmed bok choy to annoy our local siege. our muskets were polished with misdeeds.
our demons barked, all coy and ravenous in the sweet diffuse of our useless aplomb.
ginger rockets in our thespian numb. you Dis-Oriental surrogate Mom.
You.... flame folding cranes, like a Japanese cancer
with opposable thumbs.
Unstoppable in the dead wink
of an awkward eye
upon your heaving *******
You burn regardless.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 11:53 PM UTC
The streets were paved with hawkers
Flamboyant sunshades
two dollar sunglasses discounted from
twenty thousand pesos.
I couldn’t walk past the conversation of skytowers
Underwear hanging precariously
Off high ledges where it was hard to read
The designer labels
A man with a small monkey
Was reading fortunes
With an ape like face
He certainly saw the future!
A delicious woman with pushed up
***** beckoned me away from boredom
I walked into a valley of sinister looks
For looking away.
At night the sky shed its diamonds
On the sidewalks of ecstasy
And the digital signage
torched the front of buildings
With blue and red flames bursting
Invitations to your wallet
I carried a six pack Lion
Home to watch the night sky
Dance till dawn with necklaces
Of neon.
Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 days ago
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
When a wig maker saw my wife's hair, he adored it.
He wanted it and said that he'd pay top dollar for it.
So I cut my wife's hair off while she was asleep.
She walked out the door after calling me a creep.
Perhaps I did go too far.
But I wanted to buy a car.
I went to a used car lot and bought a beautiful red Camaro.
If you're wondering if I got away with it, the answer is no.
My wife went home to be with her mother.
And then I got a visit from her two brothers.
One came at me with an axe, I was lucky that my head wasn't severed.
The other torched my Camaro and covered me with tar and feathers.
It took four weeks to get that tar out of my hair and off my skin.
If I live to be a hundred, I'll never cut off a woman's hair again.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC
Lights twinkle across my face,
O, I love how those metal torched chambers shine,
That's a smile that's larger than the whole world.
...Large!
Large, silly hands with a strong grip,
And yet, they are so gentle,
Gliding gently across bare skin,
Sending signals that can tell the body,
"Relax"
Relaxing and soothing voice,
Who knew the most pompous vocal part could be...
So...
Bashful?
Or Beautiful?
Angelic!
Angels wrapped around your finger,
Is that how it works?
You are so pure,
Innocent,
Blessed!
I guess I'm pretty lucky,
Because I have someone full of warmth to, well -
Hug
Kiss
Smile at me.
And my goodness you may not be perfect,
But that's okay.
Just accept yourself,
Fully
Completely
Just smile,
And let the light that reflects off thin wires
Light up my face.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 10:15 PM UTC
He raised his kids in a house like mine,
in a neighborhood like yours.
He believed what we believe
and obeyed our nation’s laws.
When this war came, he signed his name
and served three tours in Iraq.
When we sent him to Afghanistan
that was when our soldier cracked.
Cash was tight, and his mate took flight.
His emotions were rubbed raw.
Like many other, lesser, men,
he indulged in alcohol.
Then one night, in a drunken rage,
He held a private war.
In the village he went house to house,
killing all he saw.
He torched their homes with gasoline,
only then his rage grew still.
Only blood could satisfy
his sudden thirst to ****
Our soldier lay his weapons down
and put his hands behind his head
He will be tried on American soil
for the attrocities he did.
When he pays for his crimes (Our Crimes)
the ultimate penalty,
will the horror and the pity fade?
Will our hands then bloodless be?
Somewhere our soldier lost his way;
He somehow betrayed the cause
He’ll never return to his house like mine
in a neighborhood like yours.
Mar 17, 2012
Mar 17, 2012 at 9:25 PM UTC
We are fighting faceless ghosts.
Our fists fit the image
Of flying rockets
Directed to the unending mist,
To the obscure silence
Seconds after the shock wave of a bomb,
Before you wake up to a world
Screaming over your shoulders
Corpse being carried by corpse to be,
While you lie there,
Voiceless, powerless;
While you lie there,
Realizing that a day’s sweat
Is now mixed with your blood,
And a night’s dream
Is overshadowed by engine steam
Till the image becomes so blurry
You forget why you were working in the first place.
Four people martyred next door-
The neighborhood fell broken,
Four people silenced-
Hundreds have spoken,
Sending their condolences to a country that died
Before it ever lived,
Sending their condolences to cognitive abilities-
To the lack of them,
Sending their condolences to a heart
That was shattered by theory
Before it got shattered by physicality,
To a soul that was lost
In the dark realms of marginalization
And thought of light
As flammable substance;
Sending their condolences to a mother.
A mother of a 16 year old boy,
A mother of a man,
A mother of a woman,
A mother that lost all what’s left of her
In a world
Which once was a heaven
Under her feet,
As she walks
The earth breathed her scent
Until the day the earth became asphalt
And the asphalt was covered with blood;
Until the day our papers got shattered
Our books, torched,
Our thoughts buried
Our mothers worried;
I write this poem
And it might be my last,
All is left of me is paper,
Like water transformed to water vapor-
Droplets of me lingering on the edges
Of the universe,
Until one day I write dense enough
To become rain,
Heavy over our heads
Reviving the grass roots of our thought
Growing flowers
Before wars;
The same flowers we used
To honor our dead.
The same white flowers
They’ll use
To honor us.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 7:32 PM UTC