Charring Poems

spiritus ignis - for California

while torrid sparks lick heaven’s cheek
        those Santa Anas sweep the peaks
            and stoke the charring blaze that kills
    each breathing creature ‘tween the hills

sweet Cali’s grandest homes and folk
        engulfed with horror, screams and smoke
            now ‘neath an arson’s scorching gun
    there’s nothing left them but … to run

what weight we grant to things of price
        quick-claimed by flame and heat’s device
            there saves no faves from nature’s wrath
    this beast burns whole what’s in its path

fire knows naught favored lands or name
        midst blaze and smoke we’re all the same
            and what with work we’ve come to earn
    comes soot through conflagration’s burn

such fearsome heat, such searing scorch
        damned hades wields this ruthless torch
            though folks chance lives to slow its creep
    there’s naught contained by work or weep

too much now lost this hellfire’s breath
        the things and homes that meet their death
            and yet, it’s through this hell on earth
    we learn, once more, what LIFE … is worth.

Discombobulation

Unseen is the dark sky midst the pitch darkness. Owls howl-hoot.
Vampire bats fly around. I sit, staring at the red moon.
What has happened to me? What brute has made my lute mute?
I'm mortified. Am I going to be crucified soon?

Anxiety, like charring wildfire, within me blazes.
Depression, like termites, is eating up my cells and veins.
Strains, like storms and gales, erase my inner spaces.
Why is this insomnia? Why are these brain fogs and pains?

I should get out of these, I thought. I should choose life, not death.
How merry are these birds, bees, butterflies, leaves, and flowers?
How, the divine, in each creature, like the breeze, spread its breath?
How could I ignore the blossoming of the cosmic powers?

Optimism, like clear streams, should flow within me flawlessly.
I should nourish the noble nurture of nature noiselessly.

Sick and Tired

Sick and tired,
Of being separated from myself, 
I need wholeness.
Too long.
Hurtful, embarrassing.
Unaccountable. 
Burdened.
No longer joyful.
Baby steps with outstretched arms,
prepared to fall, furniture cruising.
First footstep on the line drawn sand.
It must be now.
There is always another party.
Not a wake, a celebration.
Take life in, 
Find the different. 
The bridge is burning.
Use what started the charring to dampen the flames. 
Extinguish, watch the steam float. A phase transition.
She gives and loves.
Embrace her.

Disorientation

Themed distractions, affairs a boulevard,
as elbowed are divided from their minds.
Aloof, queues succeed a ship calling card,
as untrained get on, moons all exit signs.

The General Slocum, dressed to the nines
--churchgoers being passengers adorned.
Petite girls, bulky boots-dresses confines,
a spark burning as the captain is warned.

Crew-covered ears as the shrieking arose,
clung rails ... faith enables those disabled,
backing from charring ensue panic throes,
river rips donning death ... apt tests fatal.

Swimmers valueless o'er a thousand died.
Lifeboats? Vest hopeless; the firm denied.

Incandescence

The focus burns through a paper-thin reality
seared rings smolder,
                                      the laser fixed eye
becomes a fire starter.

You watch that slow burn
as the watcher watches the one who watches.

The foothills of mind catch the tinder, simmer
until lightning strikes flash upon an optic nerve,
                        a flare of solar plexus radiance
scorches all before it.

A wind is unchained from a giant painting of stillness
it runs through a hallowed valley of spinal awareness 
charring the seen
                            until an exposure takes on the shape
of molten heat.
                              Now the one who looks
has broken through the tissue of perception.

Follow the Fire

Betwixt fires of birth and death I burn,
Within embers of aches, meekness I learn;
In flame and heat, I bathe and purify,
Make me fit for my abode in the sky...!

My fire is my rapture in Godhead,
Within whom each of my vices I shred; 
Like Moses, the mystical bush I face,
I get roasted in Yahweh's endless grace...!

Like a bonfire and inferno, I blaze,
Charring and scorching find life's newer phase;
I wish this fire be never put out,
In rain or storm or flood or drought of doubt...!

May this give me the will to will and fill,
Till thrills till my quill and fulfill God's will;
Toward dousing-it may my mind not bend,
In love-fire may my existence end...!


17 December 2022
Follow The Fire Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mystic Rose Rose

If Witches

If witches would stay off their broomsticks,
not collecting black cats and kids,
not charring the sky with their tricks,
keep to their bottomless pit, deep off the grid…

If their cackles were buried in hell,
their pimples and warts swarmed with heat…
if they couldn’t, not one, recall a spell
and stayed off the world’s beat…

If witches would fall in their own cauldron
with all the eyes, ears, and feet they stole,
their curses ne’er heard again, end their doctrine,
face down in mire and defeat of their souls…

then the light of the sun and the moon
and the stars and candles would burn
with a glow of happiness and swoon -
to a glorious paradise mankind would return.

10/25/2022

My Searing Thoughts

I watched a man,
once, far away, long ago,
nameless, like a grain of sand,
in that humid, fertile land,
moustache, dark skin,
rough hands full,
of bleating flesh,
rough steel,
piercing the side,
of pink skin hidden,
under dirty wool.
Now, crimson stained,
a kick,
a bleat,
then releasing breath.
How like their pain,
that piercing moment,
that bleating,
the end,
that never ends.
Kicking on the blade,
of my traitor's mind.
Soon to turn on the rusted spit,
charring my soul,
turned by my hand.
I envy that goat,
feeling steel only once.
While I turn,
turn,
turn over flames,
of my searing thoughts.

Blacken the Charcoal

Draw the embers into the wood
Stroke it like it's a three-legged stool
Blacken the charcoal of a dying fire
Fasten it to a sun swelling brighter
The object is to lick the smoking flame
Soberly thoughtful to call out His name

Should a flash shine brilliantly
With a radiant outburst of joy hotly
All about warming the frigid darkness
The ocean in which stars are as jellyfish
Will appear to the seers as Lumiere
Clearly my dear it's an Austral Hell

Toss another log into the house of Hades
Balance it on your heaven party gate           
Strum the drum to conjure up the worship
The song that worms the hawthorn brush
Into its strip tease yank along

Moon moss to heavy metal music loudly
Pound the ditty along to His shouting
The anthem of a wench's wrenching
The diddly of concerted celestial voicings
Heard charring with a fire from within
The product of an incandescent spell

See that which is bright always rises twice
Conditions darken before they go black
Then Hell behaves with new eyes
And the story is told in pantomime
About a joy and how it lingered a lifetime

Twice Fed

would you likesome sea salt
or maybe cinnamon pepper
they think the darkness comes from squid ink
but that's just charring on the meat
the gravy was hand made
from hay smoked bones
and thickened with blueberries
all the vegetables are home sourced
you seem hesitant
doesn't it smell divine
here let me cut you a slice
see the way the gravy takes the shimmer of the blood
lip smacking good
dont worry so many courses
try not to move
the wires are the only thing keeping you alive
and i have only used your foot and heart
so much meat to try

The Muse

She sat on my bed, red mouth scattering.
Drinking my smoke and comfort.
I was dancing diet pill, with ear buds.
Pestering on my shoulder,
was her dead lovely.

I, am smell of sometimes,
Her, a voice of flavor on the tip.
A whisper of fever,
In her caves,of poor light.

Desire is focused in holes in ceiling tiles,
Ear into eyes, unable to divert.
Her wisdom , a days mock frolic,
Shutting down my nervous faculties.

Feeling small in her Uni-verse,
Mime tracing her outline,
Stubbornly secret,in her intent,
The words flint for wanting.

Adaptation the influence,
No one wants to see,
I loving a soul, be for ********.
In the moment stunned by her pristine.

Her works she read,
I realized consumed, 
The famine mentor, critiquing me rightly,
Charring to a birth within.

And to give shine to an apple,
In her decreeing eye,
I became a heroin's lover,
Microsoft Zen for months.

Regretting I wrote weak-soft,
Now to coffee and wanting it bitter black,
Muse subservient to her a speaking fantasy,
As her red mouth scattered.

(for Silva)

Spiritlessness

quavering soul eclipse to blame
with smoldering fire's charring croon
they dared to play with such a flame
desoul the spiritlessness moon

with smoldering fire's charring croon
they came away so scorched in gloom
desoul the spiritlessness moon
tomb in fire that ashes consume 

they came away so scorched in gloom
devouring embers stole the pain
tomb in fire that ashes consume
left with no apathy again

devouring embers stole the pain
they dared to play with such a flame
left with no apathy again
quavering soul eclipse to blame

5/10/2020

In Fire

It is in fire
 that each of us is born.
Fires ignited in consuming passion 
 to embrace the pleasures of the heart and flesh;
fires
 rising from the smoldered embers within
  unquenched, indestructible burning of the heart;
lips pursed to reveal 
 the sensual enticing
 opening to come forth, give in;
touch the candle flames and burn
 endure the torch within, 
 set the blaze afire
scorch the mind of thought
 and melt in the all-consuming charring
 of love;
be the slave, the tormented martyr
 the agonized hunger satisfied
by the consummation of love 
 beyond all dreams, beyond imagination;
give in, submit,  succumb
there is no escape, you are forever captive,
 the slave of love forever
 seared in the passionate blazing glow
of the fire burning unceasingly.




Slave to Love Poetry Contest
John Hamilton
July 3, 2019

Emotional Elements

The wind throws sand at the sky 
as if to feed the mountain summit. 
A blind fury that sees no folly in raging on. 
The wind shoves through time. 
Rushing in an invisible blur. 

Like the sea slurs it speech
and slows only for a moment of respite 
careless with determined devastation
battering at the base 
crashing heaving blows like cries
louder than the wind they deafen
Like sorrow eroding from below
scratching at the rock face
carving out a hole
to sink into this hardened surface
to soften and break it down
to create a space to grow

This seed
burried 
unmoved 
takes root 
resisting
reaching inward for solid ground
pushing outward and upward
harmoniously out of unision
in sporadic bursts

Like flames charring matter black
churning the light 
heated into dust
becoming fodder for the wind
and the cycle begins again.

Fireside

By the fire in the night
Fireside firelight
Feeding air the flaring flames
Glowing dimly of amber orange 

Slowly charring smoke rising up
By the fire in the night hearing that slight pop
Snapping the licking of the flickering flame
Afterglow the yellow to the engulfing of new grain

Wood untouched unburnt not yet fueled
Creeps along the fire pit
Sparking sparingly with the wind
Firelight fireside burning brightly as I sit

Hearing the wisps of flick to feed a process
Creating the base ashes are left
Grey to black coals to red
The fireside lit night unfolds 

Embers glare as glow worms in the center pit
Watching as the fire consumes what is within
Evening with a fire alone solo just me
Unless I see the life as voiceless company

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