Sunshine and revelry steeped the day like sweet tea dripping over a glass's edge. Overflow dribbling down rejuvenated the laughter of the gut and burst forth into an excess of jubilation. The cup wants to be filled with adulation for the man to drink; the man is a goblet steeped by the day. Over him jumps his spirit, blooming amidst his body's celebration into a new stance, pose, and guise. The transvaluation of the spirit leads it to elevation, upwards, it laughs yes, raising the cup and dousing its thirst—the birth of a madman steeped in sunshine and revelry.
Rome
they say,
was burning
and its monarch
was playing fiddle...
The neo Neros, today,
pour fuel on the fire-flames...
Caste, color, creed, religion, sect,
Each thing is bundled up as fine fuel
With our dreams, all these burn into ashes.
They give us loud calls to quench the fire.
Dousing the flame, they say, is our task.
Fire might swamp our little huts.
We should just fight the fire.
Isn't this our sole task?
Neros will not stop.
We must lose all.
Homelessly
We must
Roam
Thunderbolt
With the mystical whiff
Dousing the air
he beckons hurriedly
Enticing the day
into the night
standing tall
he struts into the deed
defying every lurking laws
rummaging cloak and dagger
defiling the hallowed hollows
thus, infuriating the sitting gods
Your ominous nimbus descends,
Don't shatter this summer’s grace.
Now all freeze in fear’s embrace,
You look so heavy, please, don’t race.
I don’t care if you dare,
Just don’t stomp your foot up there.
But stubborn as you are,
You plummet your tears for an hour.
Now, the tides have changed,
Calamity is named.
The road now deep with ruts,
Silently dousing my fragile huts.
Don’t erase my melancholy,
You almost drowned me wholly.
Thank God, though, you stayed away,
Pulling back the curtain on a golden day.
New mantelpiece, pinewood as heart's custom;
A waning fire's bed, her girl loving thwarted—
...I've sparkled my fingers' approach to this hearth.
I've kicked too long at its dousing birth.
As her skull's cracked by charcoal intent shears,
The Wintertime's frost slowly pulls out of her tears.
...You're the shadow in me, my upturned face—
Passing through this pine; this death; this hell of fireplace
For so familiar, so close, you seem in its embers;
I swear you're with me tonight in the deep ether.
...As the ashes seed to this wastely churn—
The flames may fall, but darling, I remember; you burn.
To the fire in the storm,
thank you.
Thank you for fueling me with rage
that has led to such feverish words;
Thank you for the reminder that
a downpour of pain is temporary.
So paint! So write!
Thank you for burning my skin
and leaving a scar,
dousing every phrase I pen with passion;
So paint! So write!
Thank you for the incurable
scripturient need that would not,
could not be denied.
Thank you for the coals to scrape
poetry across and igniting my insides;
Forcing them to explode into wild;
So paint! So write!
To the fire in the storm,
thank you.
comparison is a pickpocket plucking joy from my handbag
I have been compared to countless things and things
that cannot be counted, or counted on
mostly fair assessments of character
only a handful of assassinations
I have been an assassin.
accused of killing
minutes carelessly turning earth, looking
for words to say the unnumbered and the unnamed
it is ineffable and I effing hate it like a hangnail
I cannot quit picking at the quick
then dousing it in ethyl alcohol, or the other kind
sometimes when I'm bleeding out from the ripped skin
I watch it dribble down my guilty fingers into the sink
with dried bits of fluoride still clinging
hard drips that won't rinse
there is never enough blood to fill the basin
never enough origin in your story to cover the drips
so I settle my savagery and rinse my hands of it
letting myself enliven at the sight of my innocent, open palms
instead of crying over a little gore, creating more horror
Scarlet bleeds from a dying sun,
staining a shroud of white clouds pink.
And the shadows merge into one
as daylight slowly starts to shrink.
Twilight stretches the light of day;
inking ebony silhouettes.
And timid stars come out to play,
piercing the dark without regrets.
As Dusk dims the fringes of Night,
silence gets imposed on the scene.
And dousing all lingering light,
darkness descends calm and serene.
Night unveils the moon and the stars
shining down from a darkened sky.
And adds a crimson blush to Mars;
while brown bats hunt moths on the fly.
The night fell away
dousing its own darkness,
a weak dawning light
hovered hesitantly,
over its scant trembling edge.
Mist was not mist
but an erasing smear,
the sky was a half-closed eye.
Those who watched,
wondered if the new would stay old,
or not lift itself at all
from the crib or the grave,
but fade away in its own blooming.
For a long haze-tricked time
we walked in the wrong shoes,
as a dim twilit world
struggled silently to picture itself.
Wants And Needs
Your heart is a porch with a barbed wire fence
Armed guards and hounds drawing lines of defense
Used to sit there with you and swing life away
Now I'm blocked at the street by a wrought iron gate
I guess I just expected something more
Some words or some effort not present before
A reciprocal understanding of lives that we live
Of partners and children and the things that we give
I thought of you
I fought for you
I faced the hard truth
And took a bruising
You can't do the same
You won't speak my name
Like it's some kind of game
We're losing
"Wants and needs" my daddy used to say
My son, best you not confuse the two
But he never mentioned there'd come a day
When I realized that both of them are you
Forgetting the names
Only seems to inspire
Sometimes dousing the flames
Only strengthens the fire
In 2006, Israel pulled out of Gaza
liberating the Gazans
at the behest of noble global statesmen 'round the world ...
In a wink, Hamas swooped in and seized all power
dousing freedom's new-lit flame
Promoting violent resistance against the Jewish State
Death to all the Jews, the Israelis ...
Wars every two years or so since, another has just started
But does the world give two cents
Are its leaders sorry that from Gaza Israel parted
No, no, never. They just shriek at Bibi Netanyahu
Promising revenge 'and more' on Facebook and Yahoo
In fact, they demand that Israel leave the West Bank too
Won't let Israel defend itself ~ for them, that's nothing new
On the spike peak of the dark hill
there is no wall but the dim clouds
scream with the thunders; there is
no tears but the pale sky weeps
with the ruby dusk whispering I'm
Stranded cottage on the Sajek valley
coconut water in the wine bottle on
the tattered table confined with the
spider net and the kerosene lamp on
the falling way of dousing with my sigh
Crickets are busy with jazz sounds in
the deep solitary bush; no hiss, hiss
but the snake wandering beside the
window sill on the moonless ethereal
night where the benumbed veins reign
Lost I'm myself in the abyss lane of the
blind sky eyes where the lizard eyes are
the death angel and the dumb is burst
sounds of at hand death of brave sense,
where the thirst is quenched elixir of breath
No verse of beliefs, no holy verse came to
rescue the heartbeats, the gigantic teeth
of the silhouette stung the nerves of the
living dream and I'm carried by the sunny
bier where my awakens fired the nightmare
March 23, 2023
© Mahtab Bangalee
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
The innocence of the new and the wisdom of the old,
Grandfather was like a warm blanket in the nights of winter cold
Stories at the bedtime, warm servings of love during the day,
Setting up the swings for the play time and planting seeds when the mango season came
Sometimes watched the birds chirping and sometimes gazed at the stars,
Waited for the winters and for the mango trees to flower
The dousing life was waiting for the bloom to burst with intense fervour,
But Seasons came and went by, the white beard now old enough to be old no further
His wish to taste the fruit he planted remained undone,
For the life force had to leave this body only to come back again as a new one
What a misery it was, the simplest wish could not be fulfilled
The mould of the life certainly doesn’t work on the free will
But then the season came finally, many many mangoes bored by the tree..
And the new one climbed up on the mango tree and alas he tasted it finally
The new one yet the old soul, life came in full circle
The wish that seemed unfulfilled was in-fact ripened up for a new purpose
Ripples of pain weave circles round her
Memories sad and stark crucify her
Ugly and soiled scenes blur her vision
The whimper of aborted foetus deafens her
At night she encounters mindless phantoms
Vampires who come to suck her blood
Vultures circling to feed on her flesh raw
Tear her and hack her to shreds
Dribble spittle into her parched mouth
She seeks a shelter where she could fall asleep,
Breathing dark secrets into her crumpled pillow
When questions rise from all corners,
Putting her into a dreadful quandary,
She longs to hide in the remote corners of her self
And wash clean in her own tears,
Dousing the flame in their salinity
In a quickly darkening world,
She looks for a candle flame,
To make her ashen heart once more aflame.
When torn with the whiplash of life,
She longs for a balm to kiss away,
The sting of her reeking wounds.
From the throes of pain,
She resolves to walk into the calm-
Into the serenity of a day’s end,
Not to be a toy again
Fit for heartless rogues-
The circling vultures!
July.7. 2022
~ Placed First~
Pick-A-Title, Vol. 31 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
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