"transfigure" poems
the world sits on the wing of a dove
being swallowed whole by a fiery goddess
descended from heaven on a chariot of ivy
i am incarcerated by shaking flesh and itching cloth
the road before me is giant and knows no bounds
the graveyard is warm and wet with spirits and dew
and red clouds are born from fire in the dawn
there is an intelligent horse being ridden by a snarling insect
and this man has come to claim our souls
our sunset blood burns boils blisters until a million animals wounded
i'm still alive, transfigure me into a creator
choke up my nostrils with the scent of your ***
invade my lungs with the burn of your god
caress my toungue with the infinite promise
enter my brain from above, and regurgitate your anxiety on me
slimy worms devour a psychadelic tomato laughing
into transendency, an eyeless eel has dissappeared into a pocket
i speak from balconies, from terrible heights, from hastened windowsills
in a million desperate quarrelling cities
this is where i **** up illusion, i give up to despondency
i ring the great iron bell that resounds with corruption, with hatred, with hideous *** and admiration,
i scream and cavort on rooftops alone with a black & blue midnight
covered in electric lights and gunpowder tongues
here comes the disintegration of my mind
disgraced by the eye of the earth and spat into
a realm of salivating light
i am swimming through digested heartbreak and melancholy livers
sickened by madness and homemade bombs and ******
the rainclouds carry a truckload of babies' hearts
and it's raining eyes over the city now
the cry of the mind escapes from waving mouths in impotence
as millions of bacteria invade the brain
may these lines be answered by the bird of the sun
by the worm at my ear
by the sight of my skeleton
by the stench of ***** in the air
by the dead gong shivering through midnight
by the bleeding eye of abandoned dreams
by the prophets in proclamation
by the god of all my sorrows
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 9:55 PM UTC
midnight dark
is my true love’s kiss
of clove and citrus scented
cradled in the subtle
woven voices
of the conspiratorial night wind
soft as the silver-blue
edges of light
cast from nocturnal lanterns
sharing in silent thunder
secrets held in coffers
of crimson jade
blazing with the vibrance
of constellations
blown before celestial storms
full as skyward Luna
rounded and buxom
heavy with desire
veiling my worldly sight
so her truth can pierce me
blinding me
that I may see
Mar 8, 2023
Mar 8, 2023 at 11:25 PM UTC
Happiness is an empty street
And a fast car.
Happiness is a clean, cold pool
You plunge into on a hot day.
Happiness is someone in your bed
Who’s gone in the morning
If you don’t want company
Or who stays if you do.
It’s someone who is happy to read the paper
Or take a hike with you.
It’s not worrying what others think
About you and your beliefs
And the wisdom to know who counts.
Happiness is strength,
Enough to fight the world
Or luxuriate in things gone well.
Happiness is attracting and repelling
Without having to try.
Happiness is a an aching fist
And an attacker’s black eye.
Happiness can be a warm gun,
Depending who gets hit.*
Happiness is not waiting for love,
Then falling in love in seconds.
It is knowing that you are fine
With or without a vow,
Yet being able to say “yes”,
When lightning strikes
And “no” when it’s just a cloud.
Yet happiness is not being sure
And bathing in uncertainty,
Of the pleasure in mystery.
Happiness is loving, faults and all,
An intensity so focused
That you’d gladly die for the one
Who was sent by some mixture
Of sunlight and shade,
On an ordinary afternoon,
Happiness is his body in yours,
His sweat on your skin in summer,
And body heat on cold nights.
Happiness is loving a little boy
Who looks like both of you
And knowing that love can transfigure
Time, exceed itself and encompass
More than one.
Happiness is contentment
In realizing how much you’ve had
And say you’ll feel rewarded
When your random life is done.
Happiness is the legend they tell
About you when you are gone;
The feeling is theirs and maybe yours.
Happiness is knowing that, if you go too far,
That there is no heaven or hell,
Or if there is,
Then anyone can play guitar.
September 9, 2020
Nov 9, 2020
Nov 9, 2020 at 1:08 PM UTC
a desire to erase,
to stay away forever.
an opportunity to transfigure,
to sit on the floor and wait for storms.
a line to cross, a lion at dusk,
a catastrophist.
a pen filled with acid,
a book of theories full of holes.
once this begins, there are only endings.
Mar 28, 2023
Mar 28, 2023 at 1:14 PM UTC
That unforgiving metal.
Within that unforgiving metal lies all the things you cannot forgive about yourself.
Those freckles on your chin that you wish would expand into a constellation so that you may give them names and so that you may give them meaning,
within that unforgiving metal.
The Greeks threw their hands towards the heavens
and deemed cosmic accidents worthy of the names of gods,
although within them lie no gifts.
Like a bedazzled and jaded Tiresias impostor one stumbles upon
on their way home,
who sees nothing but the tangible
and tells all but the truth.
Still, he is clad in diamonds and gold
and thus has value in trade.
Beauty triumphs over mendacity
and mendacity over reality.
But the freckles that mar your skin,
that you cannot transfigure into the most meaningless of stars or the crudest of answers,
sit there defiantly,
waiting to be acknowledged and waiting to be named.
You lean your forehead forward to rest against the cool smoothness of its idle twin.
You could swear you saw her sneer at you.
The freckles do not budge—they will consume you whole.
Aug 20, 2021
Aug 20, 2021 at 6:41 PM UTC
spitting merlot felt like wealth
boxed or no
what matter, she thought
as she watched the violet
run the rill of his back
rain on a saturday morning window
kissing teeth felt like youth
awkward sure
but nostalgic, he thought
as he watched her transfigure
17 in striped T in torn denim
Daddy's keys in a low-lit suburb
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 11:24 PM UTC
[Crime-scene. Time ceases to exist for YOU,
the necrophile. YOU are on top of the corpse.]
YOU:
Cadaver, corpse, a body's just a body
and yes, I'm guilty, sleeping with the dead
it loves me, then it doesn't love me.
[Beat]
The rosary you must! To rest in peace, so
transfigure me baby while warm on my bed.
Cadaver, corpse, a body's still a body.
Indulge me; martyr to your livid beads
please intercede for me, oh, please I beg
for it loves me, then it doesn't love me.
[Beat]
Now shall I exorcise you; set you free, from
the purgatory found between my legs?
My body, yours a corpse, but still a body,
And when your sinews loosen, skin erased
by time who shows no mercy for the dead,
will you still love me then, or won't you?
[Beat]
To resurrect is daunting, but you shall have
the body that my kiss declares undead.
Cadaver, corpse, a body's just a body,
which loves me, 'til it doesn't love me.
[Exeunt]
Mar 31, 2020
Mar 31, 2020 at 3:03 PM UTC
The slam poet in cords, in denim,
rambles from neon beer haven
to flybuzz brothel, cracking quiet
jokes about soup to shiny junebugs
in the relentless moonlight.
One hundred dollars in thirty-five bills
slowly retreat from wallet
toward water-cut whiskey.
He’s got a chapbook widely
available at frozen yogurt shops
across the metro; he’s got a
tour in the works, tri-county,
every middle school from
Shawnee to Seminole; he’s
got a collection of ex-girlfriends,
made up almost entirely of wizened lesbians;
he’s got an MFA from UNC Wilmington,
and he shouts this more than speaks this
from his treacherous barstool to the sleepy bartender.
One of the girls, she takes him upstairs,
and to her he says, Your freckles—islands
in the sea of your milk-white skin.
The night passes, warehouses are razed,
and he watches the loft apartments emerge.
The food trucks come. He parks beside them,
typing poems made to order out of his trunk. The
money flows in, crumpled and sweaty and
in one-dollar denominations. The Old Fashions
transfigure into Old English. And in his pocket
thesaurus he looks for a word. It’s not vagrant,
nor vagabond. It’s not homeless, nor wayward.
He lies in the long shadow of a Midwestern sunset,
starved and shaking. Up from the blackened
city shrubs comes an indifferent breeze and
just as he thinks the word Pauper, he dies one
on the corner of 23rd and Western.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 4:14 PM UTC
The bank account overdrawn,
the west coast -- naked, easy --
passenger seat and head resting on cold glass,
seeing the pines turn to ash to evergreen to redwoods to sand.
I bit her ear and asked for her name,
in Before George's sanctuary,
blush, blushing -- finger to lips hushing,
drinking cognac and speaking in flaming coal
I saw the clouds behind the night sky,
I saw Jesus teach himself to fly,
and I hallelujah'd and amen'd and carried
her to the shore, Samantha, she said,
bulging mind,
anorexic action,
I bit her ear and asked her room number,
in the ocean's frontline,
hush, hushing -- backs of hands and blushing,
drinking cognac and speaking in simmering oil
I saw the night behind the clouded sky,
I saw a fly transfigure into Jesus,
and I hallelujah'd and amen'd and frayed
the remnants of grassroot and buttercup,
drunk high tide,
sober dry iced,
The bank account cleared its throat,
"Room 210 and I'd like a ***** and coke."
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 2:45 AM UTC
Moths—they are nearly all comprised of the same tender characteristics: empty colors that've somehow been ****** away like the nectar they digest, fuzzy abdomens that crumble within the softest pinch, and powder encrusted wingspans that fray with countless beatings from the wind. I have come to recognize that there are people like Her who dwindle within themselves among all of us, unheard; enthralled by color that doesn't exist to the naked eye, but rather to an imaginative mind and a battered soul. She is The Moth Girl and she, too is the epitome of simpler things. With Her fair skin and enchanting, grey eyes that **** you in with a single glance; lips so chapped and brittle that they're nearly as drained of pigment as the rest of her. I've decided that She is the reason oblivion hasn't doomed us all and obliterated our world to dust. I've imagined Her as oblivion itself, annihilating other galaxies and collecting the discolored soot from each explosion to sift it over the wings of every moth that has ever been criticized. With this, I have concluded that every moth must be a victim.
⠀
But, if given the chance, would they transfigure?
⠀
I've undergone the thrill of witnessing these moths revolutionize into harlequin humming birds that thrive at Her will. Wings that were once littered with dust are now far too rapid and swift for manifestation. The Moth Girl — She remains a flower of a woman, though now She is sprouting with petals that burst with color; filled with nectar sweeter than She. They are all rich with vibrancy.
⠀
With it, they have concluded that it's not much different being evocative.
⠀
After everything, I have decided that they were blooming with color all along, and it was the rest of us that simply couldn't see it.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 3:48 PM UTC
Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.
The wistful stars
Shine like good memories. The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses. Life and Death
Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable, regrets
Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child
Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been--
Beautiful, miserable, distraught--
The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.
The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze
To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .
Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades,
What grace, what glamour, what wild will,
Transfigure the shadows? Whose,
Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?
Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air
Teems with them even to the gleaming ends
Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts,
Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you
At last--dear love, at last!--
Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death,
Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.
1.8k
*Like the stormy wind in a sunlit day
You always love to contradict me.
I tell you stories of monsters,
You transfigure them into angels
With your wand of positivity.
You tie my sadness in moonbird’s wings
And let it fly out of my earth.
Sitting amidst the emotional chiaroscuro
You play with soft words,
Paint new songs in your album,
Mimic the meowing of your honeyed kitten.
I sit back and wonder,
How do every time I witness sunrise
Whenever you let me walk deep
Into the core of your eyeballs.
And when I ask you the definition of life,
You unfold your slender arms
Like a Pegasus, and reply,*
***“It’s about transforming from
One Avatar to another.”***
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 1:32 AM UTC
~The mindless premiere
of a
tropic-colored
inwardness,
reaching...
a handful may
transfigure
a crowd of atoms...
with the
dear life of it All~
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 12:44 PM UTC
Roses and Gold chains
Living ones life stained, and there’s no time to moan-a-lisa
But try this, listen: allow this blues of love to touch your ear
Let the past be just a memory and not a future gate locker that will shut you out from happiness
Drink in the soul soothing, smooth blend of guitars and harp harmonicas intertwine with the inner drums of your heartbeat
Feel the ocean your closed ears bring to life and let that tranquil calm state coexist with the depth of the soft minor chords brought to life by the;
Gentle hands as that of potter massaging the clay till it takes shape, and submit to the tender dominants, stroking the clay from top to the lower parts
The movement starts on a slow, and the movement increases as the two blend, and the hand is by now smooth sailing on the smooth creation
Allow the blues to be the potter of your humpy, and rough countenance that’s been disfigured
And made mushy by incessant rains that haunt this once floral mind,
Turned to a graveyard, having rusty gates, making it appear even more grisly
Invite the sound to transfigure your inner self to a cherubim that is snow white; this might seem like Childs play and what if it is?
You watched them when you were young and all you need to do now is to believe in them
Hope to be bluesed than bruised
And i know that staying in tune is not as easy as being off tune, but;
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 4:49 PM UTC
climbing upon notes
riding their vibrations
lilting lightheadness
ridding my soul of carbon dioxide
rising as the sun out of me
I grow higher, expanding
joyous sorrowful ecstasy
tingling inside the blood of my veins
transfigure me into sound waves
I am only sensation
I am only invisible
transparent form of gods
re-born from melody
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 10:49 AM UTC
The
Whispering attraction
of this piety. Oh,
Let me in on God's
drama.
This divine stagecraft,
Charm of angels.
Transfigure my
Divine form.
Reveal mystical stories
Of what you might be.
Oh, I can sense your
Essence in love
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 5:55 PM UTC
Vindictive viral inception,
Sneaking in my thoughts pretending
ta be the Ego inside o’ me
No!Free! Digo me,
Quickly
WHEN,WHERE,HOW, WHY? come the questions
“No answers” quoth the clouds as they transfigure by.
I am done defending why
I don’t think I need to take my slice of the pie.
Take a look; exclaim ow, oh my
I got a piece of SKELL truth in my eye
Sincerely instead of me, so trickster
this shadow amphetamine
But my light is gone
A denser Vibration I adorn
One of Absorbtion,
no reflection ever
since this inception
…of attachment
…of suffering
…of another love
So in love it tears me apart
So in love it wears my heart
so instead of being asleep
I’m desecrating thoughts, tainting delete.
Making others worry and weep
as I sweep my gaze
From external to internal
infernal extension
referral to station
impatient inflation
we stand together in the dirt o’ the nation
so in love I seem to flirt
So in love I always hurt
I read the text on the screen….and **** NO!
It can’t mean…eye look, I scream.
Shock sets in, while I’m translated in the hug of a friend.
We lock eyes and she knows why…
Darkness sets in and she helps me cry;
tears from near realized fears,
tears from the suffering
desire steers.
My boy is in trouble
I’m in a hurry and on the double
STAND BACK
PLEASE SLACK
this information noose is too tight to bareback…and my throats so t.i.g.h.t I can’t taste the air. This isn’t fair! What a cruel affair to send me into such disrepair.
Mental suffering burns like a flame, so I use cigarette burns to tame
the Pain in my heart…………..fading away.
My body cools off and with a different pain I can face the day.
So often I pray for the day where my loved ones can stay in zion with me, oh wait hypocrisy risin inside o’ me
please state, the ideas deriving me, Caged in my psyche, found the lock, but lost the key.
gotta get outta my mind, gotta get outta my body
opaque and dense, and way late for defense
Wee wait in such suspense for LIFE to dispense, of us and our love.
WhyohWhydotheseideasresideinme, if i leave my body will i be free, they think you justgottado1morethingtosee.
I just hope to god they don't try again. I just can't take that part of the plan....
Please live. and be glad for it.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 11:02 AM UTC
Your eyes are not portals to your soul
They are not some archaic metaphysical equation
Ancient mathematicians formulated to confound
They are pastures for nymphs
They are branches for fruit
They are laurels for poets
They rend me open like a flaming axe
They tie my stomach like knotted roots
I lose myself in their dusky wilderness
In them, I observe universes
Perpetually exploding and collapsing
Your pupils are black holes
At the center of galaxies
Balancing energy and force
Bending light inward
Like a sickle glistening high over hayfields
In them I hear songs
And sagas narrated by savage tongues
Of catastrophic floods and rebirth
Aryan myths about oneness
In them I see IVs dripping
Candles flickering behind carved pumpkins
I loiter in them like a pauper
With a styrofoam cup
Gazing on them is nearly intolerable
Like glaring at hydrogen bombs blinding
It is like Hebrews
Uttering the name of El- who cannot be named
El- who is above mortal matrices
The eye that never sleeps
The ear that always comprehends
The self that waivers like the sea
Eternity ends when you blink
Infernos extinguish when you sob
I tremble before them
As if they're holy relics
Decaying into perfection
Oh look upon me one last time
My love
Oh glance at me before
I petrify into pillars of salt
Look upon me
Before I transfigure into an amnestic god
Bearing light pure
Peer once more into my binary pulsars, frozen
In a fathomless abyss.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 6:22 AM UTC
make yourself glowingly present
and bow down to
higher consciousness
feel the bewildering
burning
yearning
churning sensation of
your third eye
struggling for
freedom of sight
with all of its might
it should be easier
it will soon come
naturally
if you just
follow my lead
greed is futile
let all your tangibles free
feel the sweet relief of the weight
off your shoulders
you owe yourself
that sigh of completion
the freedom of
hedonism within reason
commence the ********** of the
purest sensation of truth
you have it in you
just wake up
the apple of your eye
is ripe and ****
your vibrant brain is
a ravishing work of art
frolicking down
mysterious spiral staircases
through moments of
intensely intellectual
visionary illumination
and bioluminescence
the essence of joy
intertwined with pain
juxtaposed with
sublimity in vain
wander yonder
into the somber beyond
no magic wand
nor wizard tongue
transfigure and transcend
ascend into
the winding bend of forever
shudder with delight as
shimmering reality breaks through
with vivacious sound
color and light
conscious convergences
delicate reserves of infinite truth
the youth is not wasted
by the young
breathe deeper
your life has only begun
arrival and departure
candle lit picnics in
graveyards of forgotten dreams
the cobwebs are ephemeral
and easily defeated
repeated incomplete ideas
eventually materialize into
concrete visions
the prison gates
were never secure
the allure to venture abroad
was never ruled out
tumble forth and
discover
uncover
recover
nourishment in its purest form
reach as high as your vision spans
wanderlust for the
bright side of the moon
the stark luster of
the multifaceted sunset
tender are the
wilting worries of yesterday
the glimmering welcomes
of desire lines
halcyon days precede
wondrous adventures
transcending darkness
lanterns are unneeded
the neurons are aglow
promises of
playful rendezvous with
all species
all personalities
commonalities made apparent immediately
your mind wastes no time
reality proves
the clock is irrelevant regardless
keep your guard down
you'll be delighted to find
that you're already home
you're already found
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 4:25 PM UTC
echo red hot chili peppers
countermeasure pleasure leisurely treasure
liquid tether zephyr never sever
like the weather adventure bell heather
however in low pressure encounter endeavor
have a refresher recover nether clever dresser
band together sea feather transfigure aesir aether
May 25, 2017
May 25, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC
Birds flying in the sky,
transfigured from the nests
they lie.
A flower blushing nature's hues
transfigured from it's seedy shoes.
On the cusp of being caught
cells transfigure into thought.
Laughter breaks monotony' s pause,
transfigured from a joyous cause.
Dawn's soft welcome morning light,
transfigures the mystery of night.
Days from hours disappear
as time transfigures into years.
Mercy sent from God above
is grace transfigured from His love.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 1:43 PM UTC
Oh my dear bumble bee
She said as she caressed
her soft honey colored hair.
Stay humble
through your flight so high.
Emerge with a special glee
Of bustling-buzzing excitement.
Let your golden stripped wings
Carry you to scope lands for enchantment.
To collect those dusty pollen
and transfigure them to honey
for you and others.
A honey comb of a heart
Resides in you my dear
So allow the honey to drip from your tongue.
And when science tries to prove
With their theories and mathematical proportions
that you can not fly high
Let them taste the sweetness
Of your hustle
and the sight of your flight.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 3:32 AM UTC
if you fed it to me
water would transfigure into wine
the raisin would burst
back into glorious grape
and the heat within me
would show all the effects
of that very volcano
which obliterated its own island
from all memory
bonaventure saptel
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 8:57 PM UTC
Oh God, how long until my woes
Transfigure into peace?
Until the violent storms inside my skull
Will finally cease?
Until the gaping emptiness
I feel beneath my ribs
Is filled with warmth and joyousness?
That's all I plead You give!
Around me I see people full
With water, meat and wine.
I see them eat together --
Oh, how carefree they all dine!
When hunger hasn't gripped my gut,
I've gorged on rotten meat.
And when my throat has not been dry,
Vinegar's been my treat.
Please give me, Lord, a future hope
That isn't a mirage.
I look for peace, but pain attacks
In relentless barrage.
My spirit grumbles -- do take ear
And help my soul to thrive.
Mend this broke heart and give me strength
To want to be alive.
Apr 8, 2025
Apr 8, 2025 at 2:51 PM UTC
Beside the river,
I transfigure into my feather shape
I am in my bird state
Calling out for my mystical encounter
"Come make me wings and help me escape "
I feel a strong heat and an intense grip on my back
I look at the mirror and see my reflection sewing me wings around my neck
Its all a trip i claim
Just like a drop of paint in water
The rain came
to destroy the image of my lover
My unheard comforter that willfully has to lie
For this river reflects my buried will to die
But i ignore it all and fly high because i am entitled to the good things in life
Words Of Harfouchism
Oct 18, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 at 1:00 PM UTC