Sulfurous Poems

Excavation

I press my hands into the ruins of you,
fingertips cut in the quiet rot of ancient wounds
that have never quite been touched.
Beneath splintered ribs, 
your earth is sulfurous in suffering—
your volcanic pulse muffled under sediment,
heart-rages arrested in amber.

I carve through your marrow-deep dusks,
knuckles bloodied on the bedrock of guilt,
digging past rusted veins and forgotten altars,
until my hands unearth something 
promethean and glinting—
not relic, not wreckage—
but soft golds of you, 
burning like a mantra
like a last prayer.


3.8.24

Purgatory

When will my judgment come? He asked
of him, who stood, face shadow-masked
in moonlit dark, beside his right.
Don't let it be this mournful night.
Perhaps so, or not; has, or ne'er,
they rasped, exhaling rancid air
so brackish foul to cause a soul
to wish for Golden Oriole.
Who asked, who heard for judgments call
within, without, or none at all?
And yet, the shadow questions so;
and answers as a cawing crow
of dreams for which they dare not ask
the truth, but hide behind a mask;
as he, or they, for we are many.
They lay upon their eyes a penny;
I still have tales to tell, they plea!
They spoke; what is you ask of me?
What's done cannot yet be not so
you held that power long ago
and sold it, for this coin we give.
You think that they can now forgive?
He smells them near, their sulfurous breath;
is this a dream, the truth, a death?
Death is for those who felt some pain;
who smelled the flowers in the rain,
shed a tear at sunset's dying glow;
it is not yours to now foreknow.
They softly say with whispered threat.
It may well come, but not just yet;
there's time for you and I to play,
for you to waste another day.

That Dark Ink

That dark ink with which you were written
burning so coarsely to leave you with
a calloused and thoughtless destiny
comes now to pickpocket all your smiles
all your loves
and loves there were to bind your time

Save now but a semblance of family
a photographs lie
an uninvited memory
and so to bitter turn all of disport
those anguished years

But ah my love
it is a death which comes to all of us

And lay you now at night in hatred
cold of sulfurous scorn 
to stab the needles of the stars
upon a pillow so damp with tears
while all the while some scratching quill has rewritten
the past within your ears

But so it is my love we never listen
and so in spite and certainty 
yourself you cannot unburden

Is it so how you think you are not broken
that some righteous bile is left to swallow
how can it be on such foolish errand
a callous gift indeed it was
this heartless and thoughtless destiny

Hell Is A Place

A crimson sky, where embers dance and swirl,
A landscape cracked, a world of endless fire,
Where sulfurous fumes choke, and shadows hurl,
And screams of agony forever conspire.

The air is thick with ash, a choking haze,
A stench of burning flesh, a reeking blight,
Where molten rock, in ceaseless, fiery blaze,
Consumes the damned, in endless, dark, cold night.

No solace found, no respite from the pain,
No comfort in the endless, burning pyre,
Just endless torment, a maddening refrain,
A skin ablaze, a heart consumed by fire.

The tortured souls, their bodies contorted, writhe,
In agony eternal, forever damned,
Their voices rise, in endless, burning scythe,
A symphony of pain, a gruesome, burning band.

No hope remains, no solace in the gloom,
Just endless suffering, a burning, endless tomb.

georgia

It’s summer in Georgia, yeah, it’s warm.

In high school, they said Shakespeare
once called Georgia, "sulfurous and hot."
He wasn’t wrong.

The careless sky is letting in all of the heat.
We saw a TV news crew chasing a lone cloud.

The humidity is so thick, that the air is too dense for lungs,
but we bought a tool at Home Depot that cuts it into usable pieces.

Today’s ‘Webster word of the day’ is “glade,” which is funny, because
if you see an animal in a glade, it’s probably dead from the heat.

I saw a bird in flight burst into flames when it drifted from the safe shadows.

If you want me, I’ll be in the pool - or a friend’s pool. I taught Lisa
an old southern saying, “Lawdy Miss Scarlet, it’s hot out HE-ya.”

I love summer’s honest freedom.

My motto for the next two weeks is:
“Don’t give up on your dreams - keep sleeping.”
.
.
A song for this:
Don’t forget the sun by the explorers club
Don’t worry baby by Carrie Elkin

Cosmic Wings

Susurrus songs of delightful dragonflies with flash dances
through flowering fields with passionate prances
Glowing with sanguine opulence, we glimpse gallant glances
We capture them in conversation in composing literary lace lances 
Mother nature bestows to them picturesque chalices overflowing
they swing and sway as butterfly hearts with sulfurous stances
Arching with agility, they promulgate artistic alchemy advances
where dragonflies upsurge as universal rainbows that enhances
Their harvesting hands sweeping through circus circumstances
unmasking their magnificence as prism pendants in sun dances
while regal cosmic wings ring with angellike amorousness romances

December 15th 2018

Basest Traitorous Titan

I fought one piggish Titan and I won
As if that devious Leech existed not; 
Sealing the very firy nose of his gun
With ball-like rags to sap every shot.

A long-lionized mogul of giant name
Slew my low fists by a magic stroke;
Vilest Judas glossing in pesty fame,
I his two-timing fang spookily broke.

I know not if such a scheming villain
Fickle arms dim for want of glut gain,
Ever shall by Time's rare marvel floor,
And ink selfsame serendipities more.

May the Highest Star your ochre clip,
And pelt plagues and fates your ship;
Until Hades her filthiest minion finds 
Sulfurous frying betwixt fallen minds. 

May your fiendish bow of foxy veneer
Snap mid-hunt as looms hugest deer,
And life's fave tooth turn fatal sore;
Your daintiest morsel tartest grow!

Spontaneous Stigmata Surfacing

Spontaneous sulfurous stigmata sinisterly surfacing
Membranous molecules meticulously masterfully marshaling
Tangible tempestuous tears tangling thoughts
Radical revelation revealing ruinous rots
Pious priests patronize punishable penance
Impious illusions intrigue impacting independence
Narcotizing nefarious noxious naves navigate
Prioritizing pains portal pandemic perpetrate
False fixation fumigates fragmental fatal fury
Defaults determine damaged destructive demons dreary






Jan.18.2020
Eight-word challenge 1 2020 
Sponsored by: John Hamilton

Placed 3'rd...Thank You

Shift Change

Shift Change

another day slides
obliquely into dusk
clouds yawning
in a graying pall

darkness peeks
from beneath
a sulfurous moon
eyeing its fleeing prey


©1/18/2018

submitted to MIDDLE JAN STANDARD CONTEST
sponsor – Brian Stand

The Red Dragon

THE RED DRAGON

clad in black, she shakes with fear
the still of multitudinous lights
very far - up close and personal

she could sense its intense heat
shaking like a Chinese dragon
this enormous red snake

with seven crowns
on seven heads
and ten horns

lights flicker in s.o.s.
hoping to be saved
the special, the unique, each one

the atmosphere becomes engulfed in smoke
acrid, sulfurous, indulgent
beginning of a long end

the sky turns blood-red, flammable
eyes more terrible than a gator’s at night
scales that slash the blackened sky

you can hear the creak of a hellish tail
the swish and swash, the cracking of whip
(i hear the scream of each extinguished star)

two-thirds of the stars weep that fated night
weep for the earth and all of mankind
they weep for sin and shame and suffering

5/18/2017

Mount Etna's Dragon

Burping sulfurous fumes
its fiery belly heaves
and gas and ash erupt
knocking me to my knees.

Beneath the pumice beats
a throbbing heart of heat,
and I can feel its pulse
surging below my feet.

Treading on crackling skin
I weigh each step I take
or risk Icarus’s fate
and pay for my mistake.

I approach carefully
knowing that I could die
for beneath its chard brow
I spy the monster’s eye.

Mount Etna's dragon stirs
my imagination
as molten rock boils in
caldron of creation.


(Quatrain)


11/19/2015

The Devil I Knew

My eyes watered
from the sulfurous stench of your disdain
as you turned those empty eyes my way

My skin crawled 
from the leathery touch of your insensitivity
as your talons absently clawed my flesh

My soul shivered 
from the the cold wind of your indifference
as you flew away on your mighty wings 

The fires that may burn in Hell
to warm a Devil I have not met 
hold no fear for me

For I have lived all these years
in the cold, cold shadow
of the Devil I knew

We Break the Past To Build the Future

the chimney stacks
of the old power station
claws at the belly of the clouds
and with its sulfurous billowing
it bellows its stench
tinting the clouds, yellowing nicotine stains
as its cadaverous fingers clench
and releases, as it pleases
the painted nails 
sport red flashing lights
as the bellowing smoke
for airspace fights

the dawn is cracked open
under the grey steam-pot lid
like a rotten egg
and the horizon is broken
into blocks
between the pedestal legs
of the spindly chimney stacks
progress clangs and clacks
on blood-rusted
unused train-tracks

the scars of progress on an old landscape
-	weals healed over in ageless veldts
whilst weeds pimple between the stays
a last gasp of green displays
the gangrene death
of nature
oozing from the suture
as we break the past
to build the future

Spaceman Vs Sea Monster

At the bottom, in her clutches, you’ve found your new home
Her ghostly embrace makes you feel more alone
Spaceman, at peace in the depth of your night
On glamour and glory, you’ve gotten too high
And somehow you slipped and crashed through the sky
...one day you just rocketed by
Earth’s son is drowning in a tub with the chills
The water is draining, blood laced with pills
One of her many eyes saw your descent
While eating the shrimp from a sulfurous vent
Which, until she’d seen you, had made her content
...her heart boiling out through cement
And while you were down, she baited her hooks
She made you feel hopeful with helpless, sweet looks
And nested your spaceship in her hidden crooks
...blowing kisses that warm like chinooks
And she pulled you in close when you started to sink
And confused you with needs and a cloud of black ink
Disarming your valor with sweetie-pie blinks
...with fish guts and sea-rotten stink
Orbiting so long gave you the spins
You splashed down through brine, and the ocean’s slick skin
In barbed tentacles you’ll sleep with your twin
...in challenger deep growing fins

Voldemort, By Contrast, Was Vanquished Easily

Changed climate is not a surprise
With drilling for gas on the rise
Where can life forms hide
From carbon dioxide
And methane let loose in the skies?

Neo-druids auger gas wells
And add fluids with sulfurous smells! 
Are poisons they've tapped
With their magic wands trapped
Evermore by sorcerous spells? 

Votes and news seem not relevant
The unrelenting elephant
In all our best rooms
Is fossil fuel's fumes
And toxins we can't circumvent

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