Best Smoulders Poems
The fire crackled and spat out embers
that gleamed brightly in the hearth.
Yet unattended they soon died away
to become dull grey ash particles.
Just like a fire need laying and tending
so too does love to help it strongly flourish.
Careful layering of dry tinder and
a few wisps of newspaper tightly curled.
Twigs and small branches added next
then a flame is held out until it ignites.
Take care to nourish your love
and show them sweet tenderness.
Gentle fanning growing more vigorous
as all starts to catch with a happy roar.
Feed it well and soak up its heat
and watch as shadows flicker on walls.
Bank it up well so it slowly smoulders
throughout the night. Fan the embers
and watch the flames slowly revive
just like love does when cared for.
Bask together in its glow
as it consumes and flourishes.
Filling you with love eternal
as you grow old together.
Some things in life you cannot fix,
so we burn blemished bridges.
Throw leftovers into bonfires,
watching silent embers blaze in
grandiose gold and orange flames.
Wait, as toxic smoke smoulders clear.
Fire in the Blood
How we love your warming glow
Yet know that we must fear you so
For you would set our hearts ablaze
With your subtle creeping ways
The warming glow the heart desires
Not roaring anger of your fires
Somewhere between we must control
For either side would steal our soul
First the flicker of your flame
Smoulders artery and vein
Finds the fibre to combust
Maybe love, more often lust
How you make us volatile
When we meet deceptions smile
How your heat does dissipate
As your ashes cool to hate
Without you our blood runs cold
To hot, and angers hard to hold
But we love that place between
Hot passion and comfort serene
If only we could bring confines
Have you never cross those lines
But we love that which excites
And so accept the blood ignites
R D Seal 23 Feb 13
Love spills over
pouring from a cobwebbed heart
nowhere to go from where it flows
but in sensual empty words
touching strangers souls
Verses of passion escape
fuelling a fire that never glows
but smoulders in jealous embers
Romance and desire gushing
from every pore,dispersing like seeds
that blow in the wind falling into
desolate places, with no chance to grow
No sweet buds blossom
from the branches of love scrawled
A lyrical raindrop kisses your cheek
A sonnet is your hearts beat
Penned caresses are all you own
A love so deep, yet all alone
Form:
Those who savour do know well the taste,
The rest may form but the images abstract;
Unsubstantial eyes penetrate deep into realities,
But the carnal look with superficial glance.
Spent I time pondering over the baffling puzzle,
Whom He created the Master Scheme for?
One morn, at last at the hour of dawn,
The curtains were raised, the gallery swung,
The door opened wide to show the reality.
Ah! What incredible I did find to see,
Since then my mind burns, my heart smoulders,
To capture the fleeting vision again.
The nourishing celestial taste of experience,
My mind, my eyes my heart did undergo,
The organs of wisdom can not explain.
The words symbols suffice not to impart,
The festive taste relished by the inner being.
A huge mirror of brilliance hanging down,
In vacancy, extended from the south to the west,
I viewed glistening with stillness of dazzling glare,
Brighter than hundreds of moons if gathered;
Emerged then slowly in the shining surface,
Half portrait of the Masterpiece, the Beautiful,
With magnificence adequate to the starved yes,
But thousands of times more prominent,
Than the brightening ground of exhibition.
Beheld I the Redeemer, the Pivot of creation,
Wearing turban green with no end lurking on the sides,
Trimmed beard, neither too long nor too short,
Seemed as if the vanished hands laboured hard,
To adorn the Matchless with the regal splendour.
Cold flashes emitting out from the countenance,
Dazzled the force of frail seeing eyes;
The spectrum seemed a true manifestation,
Of the Being who from far behind reflected,
In the enormous screen stretched in front.
The mystery was revealed, but I should keep silence,
For when “Yes” and “No” both are the ruinous extremes,
Silence is the moderate route to survive.
Her hair, her beautiful blonde curls,
Her hair drapes to her butterfly shoulders.
And I stand beside her, a quiver,
As my love, my lion hearted love, smoulders.
Her lines, her wine glass curves, intoxicate,
Get me drunk with anticipation.
Waiting for her wave to break,
And surf our love in synchronization.
Then the real opera, the perform and show,
Her dark red lips reach, eating within.
They kiss the dark red rose, devouring each petal,
Devouring with a dark red grin.
Her body’s my shiraz, her lips splash a red carefree laugh,
Her figure’s a French divine.
I am drunk on her love, punched with her warmth,
She’s my unadulterated red wine.
What If There Was No Tomorrow? - The Polar Ice ‘Cap’
- this time it’s burnt and curled upon a new head. The
sweet smoke of his sugarloaf effigy black as night,
surrounded by a material red trim, below Parliament houses
blows political greed into fiery smouldering smithereens –
then it floated and landed after years, drifting, onto
the crown of a man: a business man portraying
wealth and class; here it sat above suit and below sun. The
American dream swirled with scotch and the tip of a bowler,
only for the same piece (restyled of coursed) to later sell for
pounds to make the pupils of any impoverished person pop:
his Hamburg with a knowing dent in back, how it span and
spun from black to grey and back again around Hill’s peak
to be dyed again and tilted just so. Now it’s pillbox pink and a knitted
O of a name/shape-sake that covers her head where her husband
had a target upon his. Watermelon-pink colour dye actually: the very
same fruit palette of brain cradled in her hands at high speed.
This latest star attraction of Burgdorf’s no doubt was, decades
prior, nothing but a mix of lifeless green and sludge brown from
grass and cud - metallic dead daises ducking over No Man’s
Land. A Brodie: styled on a not-yet-pulled pin grenade atop
beads of sparkling sweat, dripping slipping salt where now
a pedal controlled sewing machine stabs and pins sequins into
veils that hide brides with (it must be said) the same success
that protected Fawkes’ Plot or Churchill’s reputation or
Jackie’s husband and the slaughtered soldiers’ skulls - but
still the accessories twist into fascinators fancy enough for
mothers to weep below, only to find the box dish or bow
to be knocked akilter during the traditional bouquet mad
dash - then up – up – up! into the air before landing anew,
refreshed as a Gatsby or Hijab, perhaps a Trilby or Zucchetto;
better yet, the Boater or Sailor we’ll need when the hat that covers
all our heads smoulders and peaks when next dented and melted: a
loose grenade we can’t be veiled from, nor refashioned nor restyled
when the next season’s must have
will be a copper and bolt
protective Diving Mask
for the drowning tomorrow
from The Polar Ice 'Cap'.
In commemoration of your eighteen years
I will weave you a story fit for all ears
Of a special girl who is very much loved
A precious gift who was sent from above
A fallen angel who we are blessed to be
That her soul chose us, her family
A cousin, a sister and above all a daughter
Who has delighted us all with years of her laughter
But the road for this girl has not always been clear
At times she has been filled with a great fear
For to bear the weight of life’s choice’s on your shoulder’s
Your feet sink in the mud and the inner fire smoulders
It is from those ashes that your inner phoenix does sore
Bringing back the light and hope and oh so much more
The path of your life, untrodden is unique
You will blaze down that path, to any goal that you seek
With determination and an iron will
Your strength of conviction is a special skill
She knows her mind and what it is that she wants
She will never give in to life’s do’s and don’ts
For her to live her life the way that she needs
Sometimes she will be forced down on her knees
It is at that point her strength will shine
And it will guide her through life’s complicated design
She must forge on ahead, beat back all the doubt
Its the choices we make that sets us out
For life is full of sheep, directionless and lost
Always searching for the life that they want the most
A part of that group she will never be
For she is too clever, too much like me
She fights for herself and others she loves
Her soul is as pure and free as a dove’s
This is my weaving, filled with warmth and light
The life map of a girl who I have kept in my sights
For only eighteen years it is that she’s lived
I look forward to all the rest, the greatest gift she can give.
Inglenook
She, the face in the embers,
The remnants of a raging fire,
Smoulders like a cigarette
Between lips of lustful desire.
Where men stoke in gay abandon,
Pokers hot as blacksmiths arms,
To fade and die in the ashes,
The inglenook of her charms.
Breathe, breathe, smoke inhale,
Fill your lungs, my laddy, my son,
And when you spit the bloody spit
What manhood will be done?
Ten a penny, 'tis Rose and Jenny
For whom you shall but die,
But it is dreams of her raging fire
That will burn the smokey sky.
She, the naked, fireside chat
Will weep upon the ashen grate,
And you dowsed her, her inglenook,
How it sealed a young mans fate.
Where flames rose and flames fell
Like the dance of a harlots fare,
And you, the gasp of life and death
Did often purvey her there.
Breathe, breathe, my laddy, breathe,
How dare you die so young,
The inglenook knows many tunes
But you have hardly sung.
Ten a penny, yet be you broke
And deader than her yearn,
She, the face in the embers,
When once, my son, you burned.
© RJVHorton2016
Seasonal Change
Autumn fades bring winter skies,
Gone the amber filtered clouds
The birds migrate, leave chill behind,
For warm up north a mate to find
Charcoal smoulders capture peaks
A mountain summit drools with cream
The lake reflects a mirror shine
As nature paints its own design.
For as the season takes its toll
Species adapt to nature's call
Believing this the hour glass be
In ambit await a new spring to see
Drawn to the graves
Unbeknown clarity develops like root canal treatment
festering wounds and scull bones loom on the route
In reason and feeling I have no choice but to venture
an ancient drill grinds away carbon in my father’s grave
Gravity certainty narrative German post war collective
guilt betrayal crimes against humanity ‘we only followed’
Orders commands yet propagated propaganda and demise
a generation later my prerogative to look away falls by
The wayside on the path to Auschwitz the stench the cries
train tracks total war extinction ‘Lebensraum’ final solution
My officer dad a cog in the wheel just a soldier or willing
perpetrator and I too am getting longer in the tooth of time
‘What did you do what did you not’ and on a map in the
cellar times and postings little flags of when and where
I cannot avoid the void any longer and my atrocious search
for atrocities smoulders at boiling point and the search is
On for the roots which must be exposed from gold fillings
extracted to knowledge before cavities lie filled with pain
Might be covered with exposure of who I am as my father’s child
Detrimentally captive,
wrapped in tinsel, hung from the beams and force fed laxatives,
the obscene dream of relapsin,
relinquished orgasmic compatriots glancing over their shoulders at the advancing boulders
as the romance smoulders.
They told her and told her it's over it's over but she chose her one leaf clover overture
and smiles at her teeth in the glass
sings unknown soldier and reflects on when she was told he adores her.
Broken tooth
From fist once loved
Scars in unseen ways.
Trust betrayed
Inflict harm
Lost in emotions maze
Respect denied
Flows both ways
Diminishing esteem.
Sadness seeps
To aching marrow
Laughs a far off dream
Soul deep anger
Smoulders darkly
Sustaining life long pain
Time goes on Fades memory
Deep wounds, though, still remain.
Victor Von Doom is looking for trouble,
he wants to turn the world into rubble.
He begins to unleash his evil wrath,
causing carnage to buildings in his path.
Inflamed with hate for the Fantastic Four,
he wants to smash Reed Richards to the floor.
The army is no match for his sharp skills,
his technopathy controls their free wills.
He arrives at the Statue of Liberty,
with a few hostages in captivity.
He is joined by the sly Puppet Master
and Galactus to cause extreme disaster.
Only the family of super heroes can save the day,
with cosmic powers to protect from those who prey.
Mister Fantastic with his elastic limbs and intellect.
Storm the invisible queen with a shield to protect.
The Thing a mountain of might with strength to praise.
The Human Torch a fireball with flames ablaze
Mister Fantastic distracts DR Doom,
the Thing punches him with a big boom!
Storm takes hostages into a room,
her invisibility saving them from gloom.
Human Torch scorches Galactus's face,
defeated, he scurries back into space.
Puppet Master is held down by The Thing,
as Torch smoulders his cerebral strings.
Dr Doom tries to escape Mister Fantastic,
but he captures him with his arms of elastic.
Storm removes his battery power pack,
the Thing drains him further with a big smack!
Villains thrown into a protected jail,
world is safe again to tell a heroic tale..
Another victory as superheroes rise.
Job well done conquering evil's guise!
I wish I were a seasonal bird,
That travels flying around the world,
With sweet companionship of a partner,
Whose heart knows nothing except,
Faithfulness, how to share the pangs.
Then I fly with the delighted light heart,
Caring least the self made boundaries,
Of the countries or continents, across
The foaming wavy seas; to search,
The land, plains or isolated valleys,
Where neither one makes victim the other,
Nor playfully breaks the brittle hearts,
Nor does cast fear holding the fatal guns.
I would then chirp on the far off shores,
And dance along the ballet of the waves,
Away from the polluted and violent world
Of man, of which each nook and corner,
Smokes, smoulders and smells with hateful,
Explosives amid the shattered cottages.