Diatribes focus their galvic courses that run pure elixirs through the festival of blithe soon to become ribbons of unfurling sulfur that putrefaction molts sun-like claws of flames that ensconce the sarcophaguses it is in truth a graveyard and a shift to be had in it, the myriad of barbaric strides just caught in the upwelling, so prance beneath the stellar blue moon that visits so infrequently as sure as the night's first bloom.
Her feet crush the coarse dirt,
settling from foot to foot in approach.
Tendons flex; bones remember weather.
Wings—thin bone, taut skin—rise,
each feather catching a gale it cannot see the end of.
The body lunges.
Wings propel upward as a single draft is caught.
Legs lock into a streamlined stance,
and the body relaxes, gliding on years to come.
The dirt seems never to have existed;
storm gales he dark sea below.
Flying spray and rising mist crust her beak with salt.
Endless currents shepherd the locked wings through thick fog.
Half in repose,
sweeping the air—never too high, never too low.
She has always been this far from land, and never.
Seasons crust her wings like old weather she can’t shed.
Then the wind snaps. A warning.
Wings unfold.
A wall of petrichor and sulfur rises ahead.
Feathers shudder.
Tendons unlock. Her body loosens.
Feet strike giving soil,
legs search for footing as friction returns.
Salt gives way to soil.
The dirt is dirt again.
The plumber man fell asleep
with ash on his lips, losing
track of his cerebral train
John Boy with his stained new teeth
and guns of oil on his stone hands
Paining tires, chainsaws, the
garage ceiling
seasoning the turning of a leaf
John Boy's hounds piss on the porch
warping wood with smoke and sulfur
Is shooting blind since the judge took
his gun from his holster
John Boy stopped drinking a little too late
his brain full of holes, just like
a tree trunk to a woodpecker's peck
As he drunkenly recants the psalm
'I get no respect!'
A statue’s story draped
Across the soldier’s fat nape.
Lousy with me. Can I call
Row boats on ship seas?
We started the damnation of . . .
Nay! Shun! And Scorn!
The pilgrim’s progress (the
In a copper dress) Hail
Thy version and thy sack
Of rice. The penance,
The pound, the hunchback’s
Spy. Nail the legs
To the floor and shoot the whore.
The sheep keep bleating
The wound seething
Festering moles steering
Fallen crews suffer eyeing
In darkness.
Loose sulfur
Drying in sparkles.
Exposing thy
and thou explosion.
Master, bait the sun
In this marred age
With the lunar blind bull.
Straight into outer rage space.
Mark this the last page.
I want to stand on the black scalp of Pico do Fogo,
Where the earth smokes cigarettes with the sky.
Not for the view,
but for the vibration;
To feel the heat that cooked my grandfather’s name.
They say the vines there drink ash instead of water,
Birthing a wine that tastes like sulfur and secrets.
I need to peel off my clothes, my degrees, my Spanish,
And lay naked on that dark, magnetic grit,
Until the iron in the soil speaks to the iron in my blood.
Cape Verde is not just islands;
it is punctuation In the middle of the Atlantic sentence.
I must go where the ground is still being born,
To remind my skin that we are both volcanic,
Both waiting to erupt, both beautiful in the burn.
O web of guesses woven:
Divine: dichotomy?
Set aside, O witch coven?
Fire, O fancy-free!
Sulfur fumes, metallic grey.
Gold to separate.
Stir it well, heat, wait: a day.
Dole, O disparate.
O crystals, are you flexible?
Relative to some.
Rule of thumb, O parda gull?
Lightly beat thy drum.
Spritely fly, O peregrine!
The raptor closes in!
Talons clash and beaks tear skin!
Battles to begin!
Wind, slip through space. Melee, machine.
Thunderbolt, thy storm.
Turtle, snap. Core? Carapace.
Living room, keep warm...
Tympani, roll. Gaol? Golden bowl.
Broken arrow, fly.
Pining, princess? Sign and soul!
Horn, blow back and fry!
Black bell and book? Crook. Lore a-look.
Ritual, outward point.
Bishop, are you worth that rook?
Pain of loss, anoint...
Seeker, reveal. Heat lightning, peal.
Dark fire, in me sing.
Flame aquatic, burn bright teal.
Oxidize thy sting...
Tears of the Dragon
I splashed water on my face;
the mirror cracked in half -
a reflection of fear and doubt.
It was dark in that cold place
of shattered scales.The sea -
rushing over that rusty sink;
and I can’t think about it.
My wings are clipped;
my breath’s dry sulfur.
I said my prayers;
the mirror just chortled.
Chilblains chatter, sore;
the floor, a horror show.
It was doubtful I’m standing -
what for.
Eruption of the mirror
dares me to peek,
but I’m six feet under
my sheets.
It’s Winter here; I drag my tail.
My sharp-teeth-grief’s unyielding.
Of fierce and fiery tears - there is no end;
unholy flames of years misspent.
matchsticks s
t
r
i
k
e
passion
sulfur dioxide
e x p l o d e s ~
fierce
fiery
fervor
The dragon rears its head,
I remember these teeth
I remember this breath
this sulfur.
In the teeth I recall,
The last time I faced this
I kissed you gently on the head
And said I would miss you.
I saw you there,
in those feverish dreams as I
wrapped the moth-worn linen
and tried to sleep on the stones.
I placed my sword down in the snow
outside the dragon's lair
and breathed in deep the sulfur smell
that hung in the clean crisp air.
and lo' my heart was heavy
weighted down by my fear and despair
I thought of the king's only daughter
whose beauty was both fragile and fair
The reward was both silver and knighthood
to the subject who braced dragon's den
we started out sixteen and twenty
now our swords numbered fewer than ten
and as the snow fell I called to the others
but found I was now on my own
so i placed deep my sword in a snowbank
then with dagger in hand moved alone
the dragon blew patches of fire
but I leapt fast the fiery blaze
to scale fast the neck of the bellowing beast
and drive in the point of my blade
now when snow falls my queen always
chides me; " be still with that old dragon's tale,
don't you listen to a word that he tells you. It
seems he's had too much ale."
The spices release their scent to ease my heart,
numb ~ yet tracing glasses brimming with tears,
aching for a touch of chamomile wisps,
beneath a sky that reeks of regrets
and words unspoken ~ too afraid to rephrase,
like smoke incensed with sulfur,
like blue cheese and old pickles,
tickling the curves of this melanin melancholy,
urging these fingers to purge forgotten rhymes,
as if there is no ingredient for healing,
when loneliness creeps like a slow poison…
But must I thaw the ice within cups of compassion,
infused with clovers of peace,
when I am a mere reflection of your mistakes,
a table adorned with plates of bitter weeds,
listening to the sagas of the rain and sun?
They taste not my pulse of patience,
as I remain, the feeler of phasing appetizers,
rotting in ruins ~ objectified and rejected,
by the twisted tongue of vanity and silence…
I see demons
I see ghosts
Staring at me from the bedposts
Gargoyles of grotesquery
Statues of misanthropy
The Prince of darkness has come for me
There's evil in this room
I can smell the sulfur in his perfume
A fiendish foray into Axe body spray
Wedded with used ashtray
Trade name The Devil's Bouquet
Why me why me ?
why today?
Because poets die tragically?
Remember Shelley drowned at sea
Where's your humanity?
In the voice of a late night disc jockey
A silky deadpan delivery
"I lost it the day the world began.
You may have heard not my game plan.
God made Adam and Eve
I made beggars and thieves.
See Milton Book Ten
Are you not well read?
The blood immediately drained from my head.
Beg pardon what was that you said?
I'll have you know I'm quite literate
I have a ing doctorate!
Words: Use the following words in a poem. Pretzels, shout, threshold, pine, now, sulfur, ladybug, percolate, cap and lamp
Let’s give a shout out
to the one who eats hot
salty soft pretzels.
Who holds a pine scented
lamp that sputters and flares
in the darkest night.
While they watch gooey
black tar percolate from
the bowls of the earth.
A cautious ladybug creeps
across the felt cap of
of the pretzel eater.
Now is the time to swat
the nefarious ladybug
as she steels across their cap.
Smack! The ladybug is
no more as a sudden soft scent
of sulfur permeates the air.
Washed adrift, unable to reach the floating shoreline,
Lost in a sea of bitter loneliness.
Saline-soaked clothes stick to weary bones.
You become just a mere mirage under the intensifying sun.
Parched lips quiver,
Yet no tears can escape splintering eyes.
Lungs burn with every stroke of exhausted arms.
How much longer can I keep myself afloat?
I haven’t slept in what feels like eons,
Yet I can’t be sure, as these endless days merge with delusional nights.
No longer can I hold onto the hope that your love will see me,
Save me from drowning in an unforgiving abyss.
Eventually, the suffering will become unbearable,
And my blistered skin will sink,
Whilst my body finds its watery grave within the Twilight Zone.
All because I failed to see that your heart was replaced with calcified sulfur so long ago.
Home for sale
Home on fire
Fire in the sky
Fire and brimstone
Brimstone and sulfur
Brimstone and infernal dioxide
Dioxide evangelism
Dioxide emissions
Emissions aggress as amorphous
Emissions control
Control of ourselves (and other selves)
Control the carbon
Carbon is terminal and isotopic
Carbon is a footprint
Footprint reduction
Footprint calculator
Calculator online
Calculator broken
Broken promises
Broken bones on a broken planet
Planet Earth
Planet in peril
Peril is peculiar and personal
Peril is graver danger
Danger inherent and external
Danger zone
Zone out
Zone in
In favor of being
In the know
Know thyself
Know the truth
Truth or dare
Truth hurts
Hurts to see
Hurts to breathe
Breathe deeply
Breathe slowly
Slowly dying
Slowly fading
Fading hope
Fading away
Away from here
Away from there
There is no time
There is no escape
Escape plan
Escape route
Route 66
Route to nowhere
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to hide
Hide
Go...
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