Best Singeing Poems
Lost in Applause
I let the book fall from my hands,
relishing the tumbling words
…I fell
I let the air fall….. so I could breathe
below the surface
I retrieved the pages I read on
the way down, calling out the turning
chapters as baby elephants ran through
my coffee shop, unable to prevent
the poster announcing the circus in town
starring their tortured parents
suddenly the poster burst into flames,
burning all the lies hidden between the
lines, singeing the white-face-clown,
the self-proclaimed “ruler of the wild”
for centuries, speeches carved in ivory
beneath monuments to truth,
lay buried in silence,
and no one to talk to
...no one
to talk to
08/03/10
6:26pm
I was first picked up
In a cast-off shop in Liverpool;
Surrounded by racks of seasoned shirts
Bearing names of old soldiers.
“Draper” draped on an immature frame
In a collage of brown and green,
Overlapping and enveloping
Any semblance of a past self.
Baby-faced and militant,
The paradoxical camo in an urban warzone.
Slogans painted from shoulder to shoulder
In pungent, nuclear-white bathroom paint.
The smell is burned to memory,
Singeing nose hairs with chemical vigour,
Of dance-generated sweat, upturned pints,
A lover’s aftershave, the sting of cigarette smoke.
Washed once, maybe twice,
But anxious eyes watched the spin cycle,
Fearing specks of dislodged paint
Covering my muddy canvas.
Now “Draper” drapes a matured frame,
The only scent that lingers is
The petrichor of Northern summer
Tie-dyed deep into my fibres.
I bare a name that isn’t mine,
Memories of a life I did not live,
Scars from battles I never saw,
And honours that aren’t mine to claim.
Man or myth, fact or fiction, a primitive walking legend,
A photo vision of realism, or fraud’s conception of the
Ultimate hoax gone wrong, evolution's unseen experimental
Beast, lying in the hallow shadows of discovery.
In the tinder box of humanity vs. creationism, the
Patterson film is a spark igniting the flame of
Controversy, singeing the ends of these too
Fragile beliefs, pitting them against each other.
Anomaly belong, in the twisted trail of DNA,
Is she a Hominid unknown or a cryptid fake?
In the vast body of evidence, do we truly
Have to kill just to prove that something exists,
Life is mystery, beauties accent quality, and
Freedom is a God given right, not to be taken
Away lightly, with a single bullets flashing’s strike.
Look within the eyes of the beast, to her kind
We are the true animals, invading her kindred’s
Environments.
In the forest wilds here the screaming cries of the
Missing extinct, raging at their iron bars of the
Forgotten species, as the last one falls, do we
Not hear their bodies hitting the floor of existence.
Are we not the intelligent ape, whom climbed down
From the trees, and walked upon two legs of knowledge,
Nay do I ponder these questions?
In the linkages of legacies frame work, a divine welder
And craftsman decides the lines of survival not mankind.
A harsh fact in realism, tomorrow we may become the earthen dust
Blowing in the winds of destiny, joining the dinosaurs of yesterday.
Man or myth, fact or fiction, a primitive walking legend,
A photo vision of realism, or fraud’s conception of the
Ultimate hoax gone wrong, evolution's unseen experimental
Beast, lying in the hallow shadows of discovery.
.In the forest thicket, the hunters stalk the forests unknown,
And there huddled together are the cryptic, hugging
Their young tenderly ever closer to the bare bosom, hushing them
To remain silent, for mankind draws ever nearer.
Man or myth, fact or fiction, a primitive walking legend,
A photo vision of realism, or fraud’s conception of the
Ultimate hoax gone wrong, evolution's unseen experimental
Beast, lying in the hallow shadows of discovery.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Ruthless orb of light,
Barring darkness from the night.
Baking beaches, roasting roads,
Scorching mountains till they glow.
Frying forests, singeing skies,
Boiling rivers till they rise.
Even time seems to bleed
Like a melting Dali scene,
And the air begins to curl
Along with Escher's tilting world.
Would Van Gogh's flowers wane
Without a single drop of rain?
Would Klimt's fair ladies faint
In a set of dripping paint?
The artist must be cursed
To struggle with this constant thirst
And wander from the sheltered cave
To wrestle with this blinding blaze.
Break.
My nail hanging on the splintered door frame,
The rusty friction of my poisoned blood
Seeping through the contaminated cracks
Of the tormented nightmare I am in.
Rip.
My flesh from my hands,
Clawing at the jagged walls,
Cutting into my delicate veins,
To slash my surroundings crimson.
Cackle.
Guttural and scratchy in my throat,
Smearing broken flesh across my face,
Shrieking with maddening dread
From the torture I am receiving.
Burn.
Smouldering my suffering shins,
Scolding my soft skin,
Blistering my blood,
Singeing my soul.
Red.
The sign of suffering,
The mark of murder,
The trait of torture,
The colour of the cruel.
But the pain is irrelevant
There is much worse to come
What kills me
Is the wait...
I scream out in agony
The itching infected insanity
Building in my nebulous mind
I scream and my body convulses.
Searing temperatures fluctuate within,
Animalistic howls echo amongst
And through my lunacy
I’m able to hear
Through blood soaked ears
The slow, deliberate, mechanical steps
Accompanied by the screech of rusty razor knives,
The shudder of cold breath through gritted teeth,
The booming bellow of a beast
My broken body sprawled and I twist
My upper half in grinding pain
My stinging eyes searching
My gasps growing...
I squint at the pierced demon
The seductive cenobite
In patient, deliberate calm he growls:
Welcome, To Hell.
Screaming, shrieking,
Shattering, soul scolding
Wails will
Shudder and spin throughout the labyrinth
For eternity.
Lmerick crochetés : Once a Teacher who didn't like school
Once a Teacher who didn't like school
Since his kids kept calling him a fool
Wished to do himself in
Lost control of discipline
All day his class looked like a swimming pool
To this Land of the Bow and Arrow
Came Settlers blasting hip pistols two
They shot their way Far West
Taught the Injuns what quest
In Alexander's conquests wasn't tabou
Then the Rifle Association
Triggered Trump to top the Nation
" Arm all teachers, " he said.
" Boost rifle sales - the Dead
Will bless the use of Ultime Unction ! "
With books the Teach packed solitary weapon
Hidden under the school's emblem apron
Kids laughed loud nonetheless
To see Teacher fearless
Till Terrorist at window broke open
Criss-crossed class red-hot streaking bullets
Kids dived under desks yells burst gullets
Some clung to the Teach's vest
Others hid behind broad chest
Struggled he to match bullet for bullets
Full square the singeing flare ripped his chest
Till rounds automatic echoed the West
Some say his looks bereaved
Looked very much relieved
Like a scion for his kids gave his Life's best.
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2018
The Storm
We stand at the edge of the sea
Where waves rush towards us like snapping dogs
and high above our heads, the seagulls surf the wind for thrills.
Their noisy squawks and calls cannot be ignored,
As the storm carries them upon its windy back,
To deposit them above the harbour.
The weather worsens, so we head towards the pub in the harbour,
While the thrashing nauseous sea
Finds things that it had long hidden and throws them back:
The wood from a boat, a fishing pole, the rubber balls from a hundred dogs.
Looked over by beachcombers but mostly ignored.
These are not the things that bring them thrills.
Then those who find that surfing, thrills,
Come up mob-handed, these strange, seal-like creatures, from the harbour,
and the tempest is ignored.
As they rush, laughing towards the sea.
This angry sea told about in tales by old sea dogs.
They surf on to the beach, then turn and swim back.
We carry on to shelter. Turning back,
we see the seagulls have forsaken their wind-swept thrills
and stand around, begging like hungry dogs,
In the pub carpark, on the harbour.
But coach trip visitors who have come for the day to the sea,
Cram into the pub, to avoid the storm and the seagulls are ignored.
The sign that reads ‘No Wet Clothes in The Bar’ has been ignored.
When they’ve dried and eaten, they’ll go back,
To tell their friends about the angry sea
and how, in a tiny whitewashed pub, they found safe harbour.
They came for thrills,
And ate hot dogs.
We sat on the carpet in front of the fire like two wet dogs,
The singeing smell from our clothes was ignored.
As we dried ourselves in that cold harbour.
And resolved to go back
to see what thrills
had been left in our house for us, by our neighbour the sea.
Later in the pub, stories of the sea
are told by the locals, the old ‘Sea Dogs’,
But today, everyone thrills
to their tales and they are not ignored.
For we all live around this harbour,
And now we really must head back.
COPLA 101 RESOLUTION : This Bad Guy World
Born helpless in a void without rights
Each a naked being in tow :
A wordless spell
Purveyors of beliefs through myths by rites
Know this well enough while kneading dough :
Ephemeral
The howling spirit wanders like wind
Would wrap its angst round any pillar :
Turns not to soul
No quest can shut out the singeing din
Than the feeling of being forever :
Is that a goal
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
He's got a reptilian body and wings,
and breathe so hot he can singe anything,
he's very popular especially in summer,
if people barbecue's wind up a blunder,
He'll help them out if they need some heat,
that way he can also get a little barbecue treat,
my dragon will even eat some corn on the cob,
he loves his meat but is no vegetable snob,
We take him camping which is great,
he's more than a guard dog whose got what it takes,
flying around the campsite keeping a look out,
like a guardian angel with a dragon snout,
And in the winter if we lose our electricity,
he provides heat out of necessity,
never having a need for matches or a bic lighter,
my pet dragon is a great fireplace provider,
He helps me out with the yard keeping it clean,
raking leaves up with his capable wings,
and then carefully singeing it with his breathe,
the leaves all go up in smoke and theres no mess,
But he's most popular at the Renaissance Fair,
when we dress up in our costumes and volunteer,
bringing our pet dragon along where he too performs,
dancing a little jig while we sing our medieval songs.
4-10-17
Each time might be the last,
The last I see your face,
Sad and smiling eyes; the last
Your lips mouthing promises,
Goodbyes, eager to go,
Certain of return, sure of this place.
It's different when you're old.
Blossoms treasured that may for you
Never come again, a song of birds,
A patterning of stars,
Each moment bursts on consciousness
And burns its possibly last
But not enduring sign.
Finally scorching through with
Gathered, accumulated intensity,
The beads fall scattered to the ground.
I sit, unable to respond
To the tasks of the world.
Imperious spattering and singeing
Like cold sleet slants against the face
Burns, melts, evaporates...
My son, my son, soon it will seem
That I have wandered off
Having somehow forgotten you.
May 12, 2022 2022 Poetry Marathon 8" Mark Toney
DJ Drop the needle on the record
And send strong waves singeing my synapses,
Nudging my senses, confounding each cord
Composing my sinews to move in accord,
Enthralled by the notes dancing on the staff.
The Choctaw
never taught me what the
Choctaw would’ve taught me.
The Australopithecine never taught me what
the Australopithecine would’ve taught me of.
The Memories, these Memories,
our Memories are fading songs in
an echoeless cave.
The listeners have tired,
moved on.
The choir sang, regardless...
...for a time.
And, in time, the silence overcame
the joys of recalling and the calling out
was no longer met with the
Response.
The ochre greened-over,
the iron dust fell from frost and
puddled dryly on the floor.
Summer winds, hot and desiccating,
soon scoured the walls and ushered out
the swirling cinnamon sand.
The drums beat to mineral-rich cave-dew,
on occasion. A sometime rain that formed cones.
They stretched with weatherings; sometimes taut,
sometimes loose. Their stories lost, nothing taught.
In time, their skins followed their long-lost bones into
the buried burned and carved, now-broken empty bones
Home. The silent tumulting earth. The cold overlay of the
Singeing Beneath. The singing stalled. The echoes bounced for a time from
voice to ear to wall to child to child to wall to stone to dust.
The stars never taught me what
the stars might then have taught me.
The dreams and dancings, the tremulous and then-credulous
tremolos, the inspirations of ululations, the song-stories of
peoples, of healings, of wilds, of ways...now silent.
This silence, in this echoless cave,
is the most wanting, most missing,
Sound.
Sound I’ve ever heard.
The cave never taught me.
The music never taught me.
The drum never taught me.
The dance never taught me.
The cave never taught me.
The fire is out, the embers lost.
The handprint remains on a wet wall in a dim corner in an out-of-the-way
scree-field crevasse just past the Cree field impasse.
The teachers are gone.
The ancestors quiet.
The cave never taught me.
The silence may
yet.
DREAMLESS ALPHABETS
Aphelion my long time residence
Banished into a dreamless existence
Cannibals surround the escape routes
Diligently feeding my doubts
Eagerly anticipating my demise
Ferociously preparing for my conclusion
Gathering hippocampus, for seasoning
Hors d’oeuvres, bloody temporal lobes
Impulsive, angry, throwing away all reasoning
Jaded, crawling towards the scavengers
Knees embedded with gravel
Lesions seeping into my rib cage
Maggots, waiting at the next stage
Nightmares finally come true
Ominous my exile has been
Paralyzing everything, except fright
Quickly, carnivores begin to dance in delight
Rehearsing for the end of my rancid reality
Screaming, submitting myself as a sacrifice
Talons swoop down, and transport me
Uric acid pouring down, singeing my curls
Valedictions will just delay my final eviction
Wearily, watching, awaiting my crucifixion
Xenon, pestilent odors rise from my body
Yelping orange, yellow flames, the last seen
Zooming out of this world, to be forever free
The city's august hell-heat
choking lungs and stinging eyes,
stranded car and driver hoods agape
spew boiling geysers to a summer sky.
And we, as cattle going to market
slowly inch our way toward the promise of relief.
Beside me in the traffic
I (with shutter-camera eye)
briefly caught the image
of a sister of the search.
Her eyes were your eyes
were eyes of longing and wonderment.
The city's august hell-heat
now unnoticed faded into memories
of a summer long ago
when we, beneath a backyard cherry tree,
would speak of transcendental Love and Truth.
Your queries were more answer than question,
your requests, an unexpected gift
that like the sylvan canopy above my head
gave refuge from a singeing inner heat.
You notice the trees seem grown up, so much more than you have; arms are thick, gnarled
like they have been force-fed steroids, unlike the used pipe cleaners that hang like wet
towels from your shoulders.
Recalling the privet hedge that your father loved: shaping bolster boundaries every fourth
week, hoping it would dull the world into a soft subtle melody of background music; lying
besieged by the rubble of too many feet, too many voyeurs.
Terracotta blotched across the portal to your cocoon, split like the moth had already flown,
but you were the one who flew, singeing wings in your sense deprived flight; the night never
felt as comfortable to you as it folded around your flames.
Your life littered amongst the charred past like a melded genetic mistake,
teddy morphed into something even your nightmares kept hidden.
You know the bubbled paper well its something you see in every shop window, a brand
displayed as stigmata. They called you hero; you the one with hidden matches; you the one
who craved infamy,
still burning.