Best Sulphurous Poems
Café Terrace in Arles, France
Beneath stars of heavenly grandeur,
In a café, romance prospects dwell brighter.
Patrons’ entertaining escapades of camaraderie
Charismatically whisper away the evening.
Visible under the illuminating gas lantern
Of sulphurous yellow, revealing customers
Who say, “S'il vous plaît” to the French waiter
As passersby stare at empty tables.
At the street’s end is seen a church spiral rise,
And in-between the buildings’ windows of light,
Over the cobblestones, the calèche chatters
As people yield to the horse-drawn carriage.
Une nuit d'été de bonjours et d'au revoirs
(A summer night of hellos and goodbyes)
On Place du Forum in Arles, France.
***
Note:
“Café Terrace in Arles, France” is an ekphrastic poem describing the painting “Café Terrace at Night” (1888) by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).
At times the soul gets clenched,
in an unspeakable grief.
In a demoniac grip,
it chokes and w r i g g l e s~
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 up the veil that d a r k e n s 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~
w
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and
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Anytime the volcano might erupt,
emitting fumes of sulphurous smoke,
with asphalt lava, spilling out,
blowing life with its violent breath.
The harsh winds snarl and bite like fighting dogs.
No pity in this bull-black bitter night.
No stars nor moon can pierce the city fog.
No shelter saves the beggar from his plight.
The winds whip swirling grit and stinging grime.
Mad demons breathe out sour tasting wrath,
And wine red sky now marks the passing time
When, waking widows mourn the hour of death.
Although the sulphurous gusts still groan and howl,
The night begins to fade for dawn's debut
While roaming dogs bare yellow teeth and growl
As smoky shadows slink through trembling dew.
The daybreak chimes, and morning sweetly sings,
Retreating night’s outshone by brighter things.
Wasted Energy
Darkness descends like a ribbon unfurling
As astronauts in space orbit the churning Earth
And observe the lit orb that is the world below.
Likened to a planet on fire in sulphurous yellow,
Though impressive to see, it is a waste of energy
To watch as photons flow at the flick of a switch
In the night when people should be sleeping.
Light pollution! Conservation is sorely lacking.
(The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is constant;
it is neither created nor destroyed but can be converted.)
Dams constructed flood lands to create reservoirs;
Waterfalls are shut down, and rivers diverted,
Destroying land use and animal habitat.
Fossil fuel stations and nuclear reactors are built,
Which pollute the air and swell waste dump sites
With radioactive and other toxic materials.
Fields are littered with windmills, solar panels, and mirrors
Consuming yield acreage and resources and killing birds
To generate electricity so that humans can live comfortably
In an electronic, surreal, guiltless, controlled environment.
Words can be dangerous
The human mind can be poisonous
Our own deeds can be torturous
Our own needs can be sulphurous.
sulphurous
mercury rising
from tormented mountains
where your vermilion river
flows
The era of darkness is near,
I can smell the ground starting to rot.
The penetrating scent of Fetidity
Assaulting the nostrils of pure souls.
With the putrid scent goes along,
Your last uncontaminated Exhalation.
There goes the only hope you had
For by tomorrow all this will be dematerialized.
The sulphuric spoor consuming nonstop,
Leaving behind traces of what once was.
Vast Emptiness within the dark realms,
Something is missing, but nothing to be found.
Unseen corpses embalmed in raw eggs,
Reaching out through the increasing pressure.
Flesh and blood mixed with perturbed fear,
Despair, Misery and an unruly urge to imbibe.
Sulphurous Aroma caressing your Aura,
You’re holding back your spirit; but it’s gone.
You’re all alone and you know where you are;
The New Age of Darkness, has begun.
Something sinister stalks the streets
Searching the smells at sunset
Slipping unseen, slinking in shadows
Seeking that special sweet snack
She sees with rose tinted glasses
It's secretly stolen her senses
Slowly the serpent approaches
Since now it somehow seems safe
It's sulphurous stench overcomes her
She slumps at once on the stones
It's sillibant stutter, stalling her speech
Stealing her silent screams
Sated at last it slides to the sewers
Entrails slurping inside
It slips it's tentacles into the slime
And settles to sleep of it's feast
Joint 3rd place in John Freeman's 'Most Awesome Paranormal Experience' contest
It was the missing decade
of my life that came back,
late on one clammy night.
Wearing your visage
of a foraging girl
at the foot of a tranquil Vesuvius.
Spent though I was,
for those decades still with me,
I sat awake listening to the warmth of open windows.
The decade came to me,
in figments and memories
wheezing a few questions.
This room is known to me,
as is the night,
as is the flaying heat,
and the carved words
on the creaking charpoy
by some distant uncle.
I melded with the light squeezing through
into this dark, sulphurous room
like an exile away from my maker.
The decade came to me
and sang lullabies
of princes who never were.
I have kept my vigil
until the mirror ran dry
and returned to sand.
The decade wears me now
as I am, the hunting boy
by a shimmering Ganges.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 07/05/2017
Darkness and I have become allies,
affinity by association's shadowed prayer
spoken of the same kindred language,
consanguinity in our devout appeal
of blackening night's smoky exposure,
like a coke whore I obligingly snort it
doomed to partake in a dreadful flight
upon an impeding raven's blighted sojourn
midway extravagances of destructive somber ruins,
obscurity's sulphurous gloom of unsung melodies
surrendered in silence 'midst dusky moonlit spirits
A bitter well
taps the icy waters
from the sulphurous deep
slakes my thirst
makes my transformation
into the beast
complete.
Sulphurous moments, shadowed
beneath natures natural defences
Tenderly swaying, the coconut palm
leaves transmute devising my fan blades
Refrigerant elegance appreciated greatly
chilled iridescent cocktails assuage
My acousma heightens as the waves lash
such a lovely sound, to woolgather
To think about your next write, possibly
let us face it, we all do it x
STONEFACED
facets of fear
stoneswept
windfaced
as we stepped
into murky
darkening grey
recalling that
day you began
to fade away...
like vapour into
a mental decline
surrealistic
and sublime
tangible terror
overflowed
lunacy replaced
sanity as you
voiced your mind….
bold angels trapped in blocks of ice
labyrinths tangled in whirlwinds slice
insidious moons after sulphurous noons
innocent beasts speaking fluent glib
leaving headspace blindfolded
deafdumb and corroded
visiting that ravaged place
stonefaced
© Kim van Breda—13 October 2015
There it was again,
a scratching at my door.
Like nails upon a chalkboard.
It wasn't there before.
The wind blew round the settle
and the fire glowed back to life.
I reached for my plate of bread and cheese
and deftly grasped the knife.
"Who is it?" I said, "And what do you want,
on this frosty Hallows Eve?"
The wood on the fire crackled and spat
and I hoped to God it would leave.
There it was again, more insistent than before,
I gripped the knife tight in my hand and inched toward the door.
Slipping the bolt, I lifted the latch and opened the door a crack,
a 'presence' rushed in with subtle force and I was taken quite aback.
The cat hissed and arched it's back, it's ears flat with fear,
and the fire crackled louder yet as the awful 'presence' drew near.
A sulphurous smell filled the room and an icy cold pervaded,
then, in a trice,it vanished again, and the acrid smell quickly faded.
I know not what visited that Hallows Eve, fiendish, ethereal, dire,
but since that night, when shadows fall, the cat never sits near the fire.
The law says you are where you are
Yet every human creature we touch
We find the Stink and Speech of Hell
So from these vapours we conclude
Where we are must be Hell
But saints don’t live in Hell
So this must be an attack
Of sulphurous vapours
Mists from hell creeping into Paradise
An infestation from THEIR HELL
Like St James surrounded by demons
Or St. Anthony tempted by creatures from Hell
Or Christ descending into Hell before Glory
Everywhere is infected by demons
Everywhere without protection
No place free of them
Like Hieronymous Bosch and the
Garden of Earthly Delights
This is an Earthly Paradise
Filled with demons Everywhere
Every shape and form criminals
They come to you through their garbage
Only standing on the threshold of Heaven
Looking down on these vile things
Do these ghastly beings seem pitiable
Only there does protection and sanity come
Only there is the sight clear and forgiveness possible
Do not touch or re- member them
Do not bring them into your mind
In memories, sights, speech
Have no intercourse with them--- for
Within minutes your soul will be torn and rent
Just let them roam
Soon they will be gone and destroyed