Best Pyroclastic Poems
at times the soul gets clenched
in an unspeakable grief
in a demoniac grip, it chokes and wriggles
the pain of being stung by a dozen scorpions
or hacked piece by piece by an axe
tremulous grows the heart, over love that is spent
seeks in vain to revive the joy that is gone
strains to lift the veil that shrouds the soul
wrestles to come out from the desolate cave of black solitude
the more it struggles to wade through the mess
the deeper it plunges into the morass of despair
clung on talons of excruciating pain,
wailing a long wail of never being understood
the mind goes berserk
whirling and churning.
anytime the volcano might erupt,
emitting pyroclastic cloud
with the asphalt lava spilling out,
blowing life with its violent breath.
yet, have succeeded in putting on
a merry visage during day
laughs with the laughing crowd
but retires at night to the solitary cell
to release, in agonized sighs, the stifling anguish
and soak the pillow in a flood of tears
how long can one seek to hide oneself
in the cover of vapid cheerfulness…..?
why try to save the face when there is no face to lose?
sure the fig leaf will one day fall off
to stand in stark nakedness before the world aghast
April.2.2022
This or That, Vol.11.Poetry Contest
Topic-Fig Leaf
Sponsor- Edward Ibeh
when it comes to the travails
of the human heart
logic is a poor study
as Diogenes' wisdom gathers a lantern
searching in vain
there is a deeper reasoning
among the bats gathered in the belfry
ratiocination resting on a slippery slope
grasping at a coherent balance
amidst a pyroclastic flow
and although it makes little sense
it never really had to
the sensory faculty never met
with any goal other than
leap before the bottom falls out
and why Vulcans put forth their take
live long and prosper
it keeps the children coming
as well as the undying poetry written
in song as DJs are given to say
this tune is dedicated to
the one that got away
Oregon 10/23
In the Grecian bay, of Paradise lost, a slumbering Giant
Does sleep, at eases restless peace.
Beneath thunder mountain's base, across the blue divide,
Exists a bustling sea port, full of culture and tradition.
Beware Pompeii, for natures wrath hovers above thee.
Within safety’s sheltering harbor, the population lies
Completely at fates mercy, as if innocence children, left
Alone to play in the wilderness, without protection.
Look into the stilled waters, it is a thin pain of glass,
A mirror's image of a grand utopian society,
That's shattered in a tenth of a second by reality.
Here their echoing foot steps, down ancient
Roman roads, voices screams silenced by
Death's gloved hands, striking without warning.
A phantom people frozen in stone, hidden
Beneath an ashen graveyard.
Forgotten by posterity, until unearthed exposed
To destiny’s future.
Hell's fire storm unleashed on earth,
It begins with a quaking rumbling, an eruptions
Mumbling, forecasting a foreboding doom lying
Stirring does the mountain dragon, awaking
Inhaling, exhaling, releasing calamity’s white
Hot blaze against Pompeii, with the raw force
Of ten Hiroshima bombs.
A volcanic shock wave felt around the world,
Smokes pyroclastic cloud blinding the sun,
And biting at the global sphere itself.
Catechism's ultimate destructive tidal wave,
Rocks mankind to it's inner most core,
Leaving at flash points center, nothing alive.
Apocalypses Thunder Dome, a seething fire pit,
From which evacuation’s few survivors,
Become castaways orphans, left to the four
Winds mercy, a nation without a country,
A people of the seven seas.
Behind them are their kindred, memories
Forsaken of flesh and bone, now ashen
Residue buried alive for all time,
Legacy's tribute to the volcano
Known as Mt. Vesuvius, and a paradise lost,
Called Pompeii.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
When I step inside your twisted reality ...
this is what my spiritual eyes see,
your soul revealed in it's totality
A scaly skin of self-serving morality ...
you always ask, what's in it for me,
what can you do for me materially?
Got emotional raging volcanity ...
spewing verbal pyroclastic debris,
you say you only speak Pompeiiese
With your serpentine smug urbanity ...
prefer a gated community,
only mingles with high society
Spread suburban mundanity ...
selling cookie-cutter, debt prison housing to families
with furnishings of faux upholstery
Invest in commercialism inanity ...
everything must be sold is your belief,
even used products with expired warranties
Keep a get-rich-quick mentality ...
you think everybody envies a successful thief,
need only confess to your corporate priest
Suited sharks all have an aggressive vitality ...
eat or be eaten is the mindset to be beastly,
you pick the bones clean with ravenous mendacity
Hiding your lewdness in the cloak of formality ...
giving gluttonous divinations at pagan feasts,
your rented body is the patron jinn of soiled sheets
Cutting all soft hearts with the blade of hard brutality ...
unlock the cages of your rapacious menagerie,
killing souls has been your most primal urgency
Tampered traffic lights creates a mass fatality ...
your hand pushes the button and turn the key,
creating carnage for all to witness your legacy
You pepper life-and-death stakes with vile profanity ...
a seasoned, master provocateur you be,
poisoning the minds with rancid digital obscenity
Rejecting all that is good for humanity ...
cursing the fruit of the life-giving tree,
you rage against the people of the holy
Time to step outside of your straight-jacket insanity ...
the evil that lives within the madness of your psyche
The truth of the cosmos shall consume you utterly
This poem is submitted to:
Contest: Word Challenge
Sponsor: Silent One
Date: 01-30-17
Volcanic spat and gracefully fleeing,
clawing free from cloying breath.
Flame and fire, bolt and thunder
Lofty pride puffs its wheezing lungs.
Pumice stone, hiss possessed,
Soar and tumble, spew and tremble,
pyroclastic gush, clean sweep scrapes
Its hellish gush claws the land.
As pumice specks float on layers new,
Tumble- turn- spin, climbs to climes.
Clouded cold as tears cling to specks,
And weighted grief drags them down.
Freefalling grace and rainbow hewn,
Falling to destruction and soft explosions.
They assault the growling beauty beast,
As its serpents hiss rages at rest.
I refer back to my descendants with ativistic charcteristics,
Hit the beat with a punchline and regurtitate on it's existance,
Where did Skitzo arrive from, is he a miracle from the Heavens?
Through the mist and the fog, Skitzo traveled to Earth in seconds
But he's not a person, he's a person's soul, and the person's release
Through all betrayal and agony, he walked through Gethsemane
Skitzo's a prodigy, a walking wolf in sheeps unwearable clothing,
Reverse the metaphors, like sitting in the bath while the tub is soaking
The majority of the cuts, didn't bleed blood, they inked lead,
Never scarred up just kept inking until this was no bloodflow in his head
Living brain dead, flowing rhymes more than he flows thoughts,
the Mixed Metaphorical Artist, poetry is the fight that he fought
Indescribable talent beyond unimaginable heights,
Over the rainbow Skitzo rests, while his voices tell him what to write,
Multiple personalaties speak from all different directions,
As an infant he was injected with ink, now he hands out metaphorical infections
Through rhymes I let the fury loose, like a pyroclastic flow
The type of mayhem that turns entire villages to cold stone,
Skitzo lives through me, lives recycled as I bathe in the fountain of youth
I'll live my life, then like a computer Skitzo will reincarnate and reboot
Indeed it's true, the code to his knowledge is undecipherable to the blind,
He's got a magnetic mind, trigger it and watch the Earth and the sun collide
Blinded by schools "education system" what does pulchritude mean to a kid?
Pulchritude is the beautiful techniques he picked up when he hid
Through chain reactions, making transactions with his sight and his mind,
What he writes down on paper proves he's the only one of his kind,
But what kind is that? A poverty struck poetic skate rat?
With a pen as a bat, poetry strikes as hard as a fully loaded gat
Skitzo's cerebrum functions, beyond scientific belief,
The way the I speak, you would think some one is talking directly through my teeth,
Cautious to think, always wary but paranoid at the least,
So through the metaphors, get to know me, learn the language I speak
Camera candy nose
Pyroclastic pose
Beverly Hills publicity
Her kitty’s named felicity
Do the Bentley boogie down
In that shaved Versace gown
Vesuvius Christmas wreath
Viral presents underneath
Walk that red carpet ruse
Marrying mortgaged shoes
Spaghetti string saunter
Sauced communists want her
Champagne celebrity schmooze
Collecting her psychic's dues
Visions of pin-up hair
Her cleavage loves a dare
Diamond mirrored glasses
Nonprescription asses
Paparazzi puckered lips
Pillow tops of Botox tips
She seduces colorblind nations
Undressing orphaned obligations
Designer hip dysplasia
High heel knockoffs in Asia
Behold the drama queen
A feudal minx of screen
Begging the homeless to dream
Because Oscar makes her scream
I watch as a rose blossoms in the middle of the spring
The buzzing of the bees, gives me a sense of well being
The smell of the leaves, in the heat of the midday sun
The cycle of nature continues, and the cycle is never done
As I float under the sun, my skin begins bubbling some
I'm trudging in mud, I visualize deep puddles of blood
The earth bleeds from the core, I retreat stumble and run
I'm asleep, slumbering some, and speaking in mumbling tongues
It's a pyroclastic flow, melting areas of your dome
Where only the chosen roam, in the midst of a broken home,
Adjacent to the mind, and parallel with the thoughts
I'm scared as Hell and distraught, forgotten everything I've been taught
It's a mystical sight to see, an aurora with lights that gleam
Terrified of a righteous dream, so I hide if I might be seen
I'm scared as the lightning blinks, and I wonder if there's a Heaven
I'm hungry to dip my head in, the water and maybe step in
Bathe in the fountain of youth, with every mistake corrected
Justify misconceptions, and learn to stand in oppression
Its a vampiric infection, to drink blood and shed skin
To be a dead limb, impotent to purpose and kept hid
I'm a dead kid, wielding a mind and a lead pen
My reflection, shatters from hatred collected
And stares at me with no sympathy, like I am the epitome
The realizations hitting me and causing an epiphany
It's easy to voice a change, easy to procrastinate
You could take the time to wash the dishes, but you just stack the plates
If trial and tribulation have caused you to lack in faith
You've tightened the mask on your face, and joined in the masquerade
It's fun to splash in the lake, but it's evident that we drown
We lose our breathes as we slow down, our body's touching the ground
And we're in the midst of the water, like we're sitting on a cloud
Screaming to be remembered, but nobody heard a sound
With apocalyptic roar and the sound
Of the fifth angel’s trumpet, this star’s fall
From heaven collaps’d the volcanic north
Face, releasing in pyroclastic flow
Roiling, rumbling, demonic spirits,
Dwellers of the Abyss, vaporizing
Instantaneously man, deer and bird,
Blotting the sun, with roiling death’s ash clouds.
Today, this scene, once hosting Cascadian
Armageddon, now quiet, as the new
Heaven and earth reclaim sanctuary
Where thrush and grouse hide, deer and elk wander
Feeding ‘midst heather and lupine. Life does
Recover her tenuous hold on earth.
Written May 18, 2016, the 36th Anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens
Choral music heard from afar.
A harmonic response to an inner voice
Through the distance, I see the sunrise.
A primal cord takes life.
Knowing that this is a maze within;
is it more than I can deal with?
The story of life will soon be told.
A structure that will liberate us all;
that of mother and child entwined
cast from the empty Ash of time.
A plea for life from those long lost.
Those victims of pyroclastic flow,
which strike the heart and touch the
chord values and comforts of life;
are a new sunset.
Horizons from afar see the nightfall.
Beauty with no disguise brings smiles of sunshine.
Amazing grace life now has.
The twilight soothes.
The end of each day brings rebirth.
Renaissance transformed on Earth with unity in work.
Life interweaves to reconstruct.
We work in the fields.
Bring life from dead soil.
We gaze at the heavens and wonder what life would be like.
Would there be as much strife if we lived on a world in Orion?
A status thus formed that brings liberation to our world.
We stand amongst the saved embracing a salubrious aura!
___________________________________________________/
Sponsor: Jared Pickett
Contest Name: Collaboration
Collaborators: Verlena S. Walker and Douglas Dicketts
Entry Date: March 09, 2014
it is that look in your eyes
that commences mine closing
the world disappears
the aroma in your hand
echoes the feel as your shoulder
guiding, powering the arm
the deliverance is in hand
all the senses wait for the touching
held at bay by a Percheron steadfast
angel wings whisper
as your hand arrives on my cheek
my heart in a pyroclastic bursting
as enchantment grasps
every atom within me
where time and space have no meaning
and in that instant when lips meet
the Percherons are in a full gallop
in a universe gravid with an elucidation
that consumes my life
a plethora of galaxies i so adore
all of this from a social event
i had no intention of attending
where just one perchance look
from afar across the room
became the smile on Klotho's face
OKC 4/23
It was in my darkest moments that
I found I wrote my best
Like a volcano my emotions
would explode from the caldera of my soul
Molten nouns, verbs and adjectives
poured forth from somewhere deep within
Flooding every line like a tsunami hitting the beach
Swelling red hot rivers of ink burned up every page
While plumes of hurt flung pain in all directions
And pyroclastic flow's of tears roared down my burning cheeks
Thus; it is in my darkest moments that I find I write my best
Written from the perspective of a hurting poet
Above our heads that cloud
Mushroom shaped death
With a pyroclastic promise
Of incineration leaving
Nothing but our shadows
That we can only hope
Carries upon it no pain
No suffering as we just vanish
Along with most other
Life and species on this planet
And a nuclear winter
Lasting for many long years
But with no one to mourn
No one to shed a tear
I take no joy in spreading fear
But have no faith in those who rule
I will take no pleasure if I am right
As humanity succumbs to eternal midnights
No ringing of church bells
No tombstones
Over which to dwell
A thousand years from now
The planet will heal
And with no human species
This earth will grow very well
In time nobody will even know
Or be able to tell
That the miracles known as human beings
Here used to dwell
As we will be a myth
But written in no books
And told in no stories
For they like us will fail to exist.
Those Tommies send their planes in large amounts
They drop their bombs but all they do is bounce
Like rubber balls their bouncy bombs all missed
Those British pilots must be really…
*
The steward asked the ‘Lady’ won’t you please enjoy our boat
The RMS Titanic is the safest ship afloat
The lady huffed and said a little service would be nice
I’ve got my gin and tonic… could you organise some ice?
*
Vesuvius is puffing out some wispy smoke today
They say there could be fireworks to brighten up Pompeii
How many more times will they say that mountain’s gonna go
And won’t somebody tell me what’s a pyroclastic…
…
Oh!
*
I learned my skills in marketing back in seventy three
For twelfth century Pisa was a training ground for me
I proved my salesmanship to market trader, Uncle Neville
I even got a few quid for that dodgy spirit level
Every morning I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, witness to the decay of my body as time has gained an equal measure of revenge on me. I want to turn away as I wonder how another huge wrinkle could appear on my sagging ass cheeks while I slept? I know it wasn’t there last night.
There is something inherently unfair about this turn of events. When I look at myself I see the wrinkles extend from cheek to cheek, almost around to my side. I am beginning to think my ass looks more like a section of the great Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean; deep and wide.
Both parcels of the trench seem to be collapsing in on the other and not just in a minor way. We are talking about a major Teutonic shift as my ass cheeks slowly press together and not in an uplifting manner. It is not a very pretty sight when I am naked in front of the bathroom mirror and look down at the shifting landscape that are my ass cheeks.
Even more frightening than my ass cheeks collapse is that my waist has become an expanding volcano with an uncontrolled pyroclastic flow. It doesn’t matter how I position myself in the mirror or what time of day it might be, I can now see the simultaneous collapse of my ass and explosion of my waist; is it possible that opposites attract?
I have come to the conclusion I have no control over this unexpected turn of events. I am resigned to the inevitable outcome that is going to occur. But, the good news is that I still have all my hair while the rest of my body collapses into nothing more than a faded memory and not a very good one.