The Nature Of Fire

 

 

The Nature of Fire

"The  great desire of a flame  is to continually burn.

 The nature of fire is that it always wants more."

~Corvidus the Elder

Under the wing of the Crow

hides a feathery system of madness;

students burn syllables of darkness

spat into the alembic of sanity,
turning gossip of  metaphysicians
wanly cadaverous by starlight,

whispering quicksilver clues.

The philosopher's stone still eludes them

though they work with the frenzy of madmen

to dry the cold humors of water, push
a natural progression of vileness
to purity using the flame.
The nature of fire is that it's immaculate;
the mourning of fire is that it always wants more.

They speak these glowing desires

in the tongue-twisting gibberish of blackbirds,

court the devilish salvation of  oddity,

vulgarly cawing of victory in the

soothing-sweet chant of the damned.

I cannot credential this lunacy

despite my degree in Catastrophe.

I toast it instead with the elegy

of a memory;

our glasses hold legions of flames' flickered casualties

like ladies lavish with luxury

pile amusements in portmanteau'd  piracy,

 

knowing fire will always want more.

 ~December 2013

 

lightly revised, July 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

reposted for desperate poets

   Woe For My Spurs

Original process notes: Poe prefaced many of his short stories with quotes, and many of them were ones he made up, as I did here with my  excerpt from the works of the imaginary alchemist, Corvidus The Elder.   

 

"The philosophers' stone or stone of the philosophers (Latin: lapis philosophorum) is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold... It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality." ~wikipedia   And what deserves an elegy more?

 

 

Image: Alchemy the Useless Science, Remedios Varo

 

 

Heartbeat

 

 

Heartbeat

 

 

 

 

The earth is aching where I walk and never learn,

her broad abiding back riven and split

by the wedge of heat and maul-strikes of the sun;

she was never meant to look so desolate,

 

nor the sickle moon give up her soul to burn.

Sere ghosts of a dead storm blow like yellow leaves

to the grassfire hell-combustion at full day's cairn,

bellies swelled on dust and smoke until they heave.

 

But still I see young hawks on thermal towers,

hear the cricket scrape his withered legs and sing,

know it's a fool who digs a graveyard for the flowers

for life is the deathless husband of these things.

 

I am an iron weight that soon must drop;

earth is a heartbeat fire cannot stop.

 

 

 

July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for earthweal's

Open Link Weekend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: Temperatures here in Oklahoma are expected to stay between 100 and 110 through July and into August. We haven't had extended extreme heat like this since 2012, and it was awful then.We pray the power grid holds, the A/C doesn't die and just huddle down and try to make it through the wildfires and heat exhaustion, but many parts of the world are seeing temperatures like these where they have never existed before and are unprepared for its force, enduring great hardship. I extend my sympathies. Take care as much as you can; it sucks, and it can kill.

 

 

 

 

 Images © joyannjones, july 2022

 

Gratitude

 

 

 

Gratitude

is a kind of ash

that blows in volcano wind,

falling opal feather-scales hissed

off by fire-snakes that coil

their islands in the sea,

all we have left perhaps

of rocky miles of ore and gold

stacked heavy in earth's shadowbox

melting in pressured flux

spit out to lift a mountain

from the core. 

~November 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reposted from 2012 for Thanksgiving 2021

Open Link

at DVerse Poets 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving to All 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 55 serpent feathers for  the absent g-man; grateful always

 

Header Image: Mayon Volcano, Philippines, by Alan Flowers, on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Footer Image: rendering of Yaxchilan Feathered Serpent Diety, byEl Commandante

public domain, via wikimedia commons 

 

Mystery On The Blue Train

 

 

 

 

Mystery On The Blue Train

(a 55)

 

 

There's mystery on the blue train;

Poirot's perplexed

at passion, soft skin, desire.

There's a heart of fire

burning before the snow falls

in the cemetery-silence

that flies behind eyes

in wind that plays

dead jazz in the night

in love slung over the bar

that snaps like crisp hangman's rope

when the body drops.

 

 

 

 

October 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 linked to dVerse Poets

Open Link Night

 

 

 

 

A 55 for Friday, and the G-Man (Homage to Christie)

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Interior view of a party at Zelli's nightclub, 16 Rue Fontaine, Montmartre, Paris, 1920s Fair Use

First edition cover,Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928  via wikipedia   Fair use, Link

Positions

 

 

 

 

 

Positions

 

 

You sleep flat in

the fire of all that was

and never burn;

ice doesn't.

I sleep on

the ashes; a body in

a prehistoric grave,

with stones, ivory rings

and broken pots,

curled tight to shield

all the soft things

that rot away.

 

 

October 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Quadrille Night

at dVerse Poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Bronze Age Pot from prehistoric burial, Southern Urals © Finn Shrieber  from article 

Neolithic skeleton of a woman, from 4500 year old burial in Germany, by Archaeros, from article

 Fair Use

 

Blue Flame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Blue Flame

I was the woman who

loved you hotter than a sun

hard as a granite gravestone

once,

but time has chosen to

braid me differently, tying years

into grey knots

behind which the crimson

of memory

coagulates and fails

making it seem as if there

is not, never was,

love as stubborn as a pebble in a shoe

piercing every step.

A parody of a woman

rolled in a circus tent, lurches like

a wheelbarrow when she walks,

from the pebble, from the weakness, from the void.

Her flesh sags like a

campfire marshmallow melting

on the stick.

Yet in the mirror gateway

my eyes avoid, sometimes a flash;

the high snow-swept cheekbones of that girl,

the sunburnt hair longer than winter,

the bell glass body moon-rounded, glowing

a blue flame within, feeling

your touch so

 

fluent in flourishes of stars;

 

 

 love as sharp as thirst

unquenchable.

 

 

 

September 2021 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images via internet, authors unknown    Fair Use

 

 

Lightning Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Lightning Tree

When I was a child

pewterblue eyes round

as green walnuts, yellow pigtails

pulled tight in shredded rubber bands

I breathed up a world where I

lived in the storm, thunderheads panting like

mastiffs, tongues lolled over the lake, wind

secret as the monster under the bed

smiling, lightning fairy-dancing

into a forest 

of wild branches;

I didn't blink for the peace of it

covering the screaming, the blows,

cleaning my face

 

of a toy's tears. 

I breathed it in, petrichor

and the smell of power,

a brew of walking cobwebs

that piggy-backed me away,

a broken-eyed Dorothy doll

searching for Oz.

 

When I asked you to

kiss me like rain, you took me

up high on the lightning tree.

You had a web there, gunmetal strong

and sticky with grief. On the 

edge of those sudden wires,

one foot already caught

 

you don't even know you're dead.

When you fight

to run with one eye blind, 

and feel the tremble

coming closer

 

you learn everything

you lost

 

  all

you never had

 

 and that you 

can never trust

a storm.

 

 

 

~July 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: Comment moderation has been turned on. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: Lightning in West Texas © Ryan Smith Photography   Fair Use

Broken doll, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use

 

Sunflower Summer

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FRIDAY 55

Sunflower Summer

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. 

~ William Blake

 

It was a sunflower summer

counting steps to the sun

as the heat ran away

after a bad opening night.

Monarchs and hummingbirds

trimmed the yellow-gold plates,

bright beads of Christmas glass.

Rabbits came to the back door

with tea and grass hats

asking the way to Wonderland

til everything went south

blind as salmon in time's reckless river.

I spoke crackling long distance

to the place where you'd been.

It was noncommittal, polite, quite

willing to take a message, yet

I never heard back,

though every sunflower

turned its gathering face to you

in that unmaking summer

of black rolling thunder

in the East, lightning crawling

in the navy blue clouds

towards

a red greed of fire, tree-torches smoking

 a banshee wind in the West.

The scorch of mankind

opened its heart to the storm

and the storm came inside

 like Jesus in a circus tent.
 

Still,

against autumn's flood

the sunflowers pack light

into rucksacks of seeds

for the traveler's journey

 to come.

 August 2020

posted for 

The Sunday Muse

and earthweal's Open Link,

(for Mondays theme of Storms and Rainbows)

Images: Sunflowers, artist unknown   Fair Use

The March Hare, © John Tenniel circa 1865  Fair Use

Fire of Imaginary Origin

Fire of Imaginary Origin

We lit a bonfire

of lies on the earth

where we burned

not vanities

but sanities,

not tree parts

but peace, hearts,

flesh and bone,

blood and stone;

and whatever we learned

as planets were turned

we watched

fall to ash, and were glad that it burned.

Winter Solstice

December, 2019

It is with sadness and great gratitude that I post to Marian's Imagine prompt at the vanishing

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Image: The Ladder of Fire, © Rene Magrite, 1939. Fair Use

Image of fire, author unknown, via internet. Fair Use