A spark ignited when our paths first crossed,
Your knowledge kindled, my ignorance tossed.
From a timid flicker to a steady glow,
Our bond, like embers, began to grow.
Your wisdom blazed, a guiding light so bright,
Illuminating truths are once hidden from sight.
In learning's heart, our spirits intertwined,
A sacred fire of mentor and mind.
But time, relentless, feeds on mortal flame,
And even the wisest cannot remain.
Your light now fades, yet lingers in the air,
A warmth remembered, beyond compare.
The pyre of knowledge you so proudly built,
Now, it smoulders low, leaving me with guilt.
For lessons missed and questions left unasked,
As twilight falls on your final task.
In ashen whispers, your teachings persist,
Through smoky memories, too precious to resist.
Though you are gone, your spark lives on in me,
A flame of wisdom, burning ceaselessly.
Your absence chills, yet warms me all the same,
For in my heart, you're an eternal flame.
I tend this ember, with reverence and care,
Honouring the light we used to share
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.
I thereby pledged to leave alone
endeavors bound for ills, my own
to worship at your fleshly throne
and bow before your pleasures
their ends, quite at your leisures
oh all my prayers are met, replete
while fawning honors at your feet
ten hot-pink piggies, soft ‘n’ sweet
lined straight as little misses
kept clean for courtly kisses
I'm just a jester - scoundrel, true
one foolish fool for moonlite, blue
when daubed upon the husk of you
pearled garland for your bedding
to naughty knots, we're heading
yet while I worship yours, all-in
and fan our friction, skin-to-skin
you call another's name (with sin)
and perfect passion molders
so cleaving, as it smoulders ...
this fool's head ... from his shoulders.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, October 11, 2022
( photograph taken by Gregory R Barden )
Buried deep within the five sheaths of form
Connected to ego through senses five
Inner polarity feels bliss throb warm
Essence of presence in the void does jive
Truth of our being, within and around
Closer than breath, intimate as heart beat
Empty space itself and the silent sound
Caress of love that each moment does greet
Immersed into the world of illusions
Myriad images tend to bewilder
Yet in quietude of meditation
Energies entwine as bliss mist smoulders
Nestled in joy, in thought free awareness
We are as we are, one with that oneness
07-November-2020
If i exist
I would write of tears
that pulled down walls
Of love in seconds glance
Of new born parents
with matching gloop stains
Of darkness that swims between
the blood and skin
Of strutted sex
that smoulders ember ambers
Of blades of grass
that twirl balletic
in moistening summer wind
______________I
Between Good aNd Evil
on the n
I stand
If i exist
i lie wi in th the space
where ink touches paper
Where key finger indent begs fullfilment
in bluened night
Sun
shines long
parched plateau
summer smoulders
June
May 22, 2019
There stands a blackened tower
Shrouded in a ghostly white
The tomb of seventy two
From a day that drags on hour by dreadful hour
As we reflect upon that ghastly night
A day so many live to rue.
From a simple kitchen fire
There grew a flesh eating blaze
That built into a funeral pyre
Covering London in its darkening haze.
Onlookers helplessly looked on
At windows registering silent screams
Of friends and relatives soon to be gone
The stuff of nightmares ,not of dreams.
Too late did the firefighters come
As the flames did the victims consume
In the furnace they once called home
Daily life no longer theirs to resume
An inquiry now picks over the remains and rubble
Searching for what went so badly wrong
Many will be called to account for this trouble
For those commemorated in my dirge of a song.
Grenfell's holocaust is burned into the national mind
Memories shredded and ripped sadly asunder
While every attempt was made for blame evasion
By those who to customer safety were blind
Our bitter grief smoulders on from this costly blunder
Such a parcel of hypocritical rogues in our nation!
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
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.
Down The Years
O, my blanket smoulders,
too warm for you and I,
Drape, my dear, your shoulders
and not upon your eye.
Lay between the faces
of every empty smile,
To wallow in the spaces
and breathe there, for a while.
O, these shoes grow weary,
we've come, this time, too far,
Run with me, don't fear me,
or how beautiful you are.
Tip-toe between our troubles
through the shadows in the dust,
To gaze upon young couples
pretending they are us.
O, how a kiss can turn sour,
bittersweet and rushed,
Kiss, instead, a delicate flower
before it can be crushed.
Blossom between regrets
where memories dare to hide,
And waltz to loving minuets
befitting a blushing bride.
O, your heart is dancing,
'tis time to take your leave,
I'll wear it, my dear, romancing
and not upon my sleeve.
Love me between the tears
that oft, do gently flow,
To rendezvous down the years
where I will let you go.
©RJVHorton2016
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
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.
I bring you Fire
Fire smoulders and branches crackle which smears the ground blackish grey ashen
Feed these flames that rise and dance around naked orange red and blue with passion
The ascension lifts hearts to warm our blood to create a vital archaic light fashion
Inside your eyes dilate when in its fury and glorious rage as lives are a mere distraction
To hold all of this force and use it with wisdom is and always will be an attraction
Gold and silver streams through it like liquids poured by an artist to craft imagination
Fire is power to change like a chameleon and strengthen the hold of fascination
Too strong to touch because we burn in its wake of complete and utter destruction
Lust foils the mind to think of love but fires heat distracts in its constant illusion
A single flame can light the way to heaven or can leave you in total confusion
So dance yes dance and forever we will live in awe but learn of its manifestation
Facination
yes the fire blazes with delight,
and smoulders long into the night,
driven crazy, estatic light,
till grey dawn, perhaps erases....
i'd say it never might,
facination, serpent raises....
Don Johnson
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