Ballad Of The Earwig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ballad Of The Earwig

(a 55)

 

He was the earwig come up through the drain,

she the rosebud ruined in rain,

 

she the actress losing her looks,

he, strutting hero of unreadable books;

 

they a brainstorm dying in rage,

they, two monkeys shaking a cage.

 

I am the pony who runs with the storm,

you, blue fire that burns without warmth. 

 

 

April 2025 

 

 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Earwig, metal sculpture, artist unknown. via internet   Fair Use

Blue Fire Wallpaper, artist unknown, via internet,   Fair Use

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

 

 

Wildfire

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildfire

 

 

 

Time is a wildfire loose in the willows

burning soft-stemmed boughs to hissing smoke.

Their weeping won't save them, or their green hearts,

nor the pleading of oxen, burnt out of their yokes.

It runs its red leg 'cross the suck of the slough

to harvest sheep's breath in its ragged pillows,

to garland the branch with burnt black buds.

Time is a wildfire loose in the willows.

Time races, time flies, time burns the bridges.

It eats church and saloon out of house and hope.

It's tongue licks the moonlight off the moon's mirror

and boils rainy hours to hissing smoke.

Time is a fire, time is a melting

that feeds on the whole and ashes the parts.

Time burns up May-brides into sere widows;

their weeping won't save them, or their green hearts.

And when black-cloud crows show to pick my bones

I'll say come, children come, and don't come slow.

Time's a quick flame, and we are its smoke.

Time was my harness; I'm soon out of its yoke.

April 2022

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom 

at The Sunday Muse:

Word Garden Word List #19:A.E.Housman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: This poem is in the cascade form(with a few liberties,) which I felt fit in with Housman's general style, tho since it has been invented since his time, of course he never used it.

 

 

 

Images; Landscape Of Ruins And Fires, 1914 © Felix Valloton, manipulated   Public Domain

Wheatfield With Crows, 1890. © Vincent Van Gogh  manipulated,     Public Domain

Winter Fuel

Winter Fuel

I.

The broken elm

brought down by ice

will make a winter fuel,

cells burnt to ghost-ash

in hearth's fire heart.

Birds sing in his hair no more

only the crackle of demons

whistling the jig of fitful flame.

I gave myself once
to the fire of your touch

a broken trunk, a winter fuel.

 My snapped
arms

lost their smooth skin

as the fire burned in

and the demons laughed

and the ghost-ash fell;

but still 

in the rimed December

of want and desire,

to your thickening ice

I'd rather be fire.

II.

Dead night lengthens,

 cheap lights press upon the sun.

In gaudy December,

want and desire

both need a fire.

Anger is a winter fuel,

fear its dear

disciples: the frost-marrowed bones

whiskey-rage comes to melt,

the sleet of hot bullets

fired at the dark

from behind

a clean shirt of lies,

a mask with no eyes.

The bodies fall

like broken elms

unrelated, remote

stacked on concrete;

winter fuel
that burns cold
as Hel.

~December 2015

This poem took rather opposing directions--I have decided to include both.
The words 'winter fuel' are taken from the carol 'Good King Wenceslas'

Process notes for part II:

"HYDRO, Okla -  A series of shootings along I-40 have resulted in two deaths Thursday morning.
The rampage started near Hydro and ended in Custer County where a suspect was arrested...
Authorities say he targeted one vehicle in a road rage incident, shooting several times at the car. The driver was shot and killed..A few minutes later near Weatherford, officials say the suspect shot at another vehicle, killing a woman. Around 1 a.m., [the shooter] was arrested for driving under the influence..." ~kfor news, oklahoma city

In Norse mythology, Hel was the realm where the dead went to abide with the goddess of the same name, located in Niflheim, a world below of frozen ice and cold.

posted for     real toads

Weekend Challenge

Images: Winter Fuel, © joyannjones, November 2015

Footer: Vehicles at Hydro shooting incident, courtesy kfor.com No copyright infringement intended.

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 essence of fire is that it always wants more.

They speak these desires of fire

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 a memory;

our glasses hold flames' flickered casualties

like ladies lavish with luxury pile

amusements in portmanteau'd  piracy,

knowing fire will always want more.

 ~December 2013

posted for      real toads

Wednesday Challenge: Get Listed

The inimitable Fireblossom is in charge of summoning poems today, and has provided us with a word list drawn from "The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether' by Edgar Allen Poe. I thought I had used  all 23 of her diabolical words here in one form or another, but I missed 'irrational.' But it is there in spirit! You may peruse the list in full at the link above.

Process notes: Poe prefaced many of hs 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

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Alchemy, or The Useless Science, by Remedios Vara

May be protected by copyright. Posted underfair use guidelines

via wikipaintings.org.

Incubus VIII

Untitled, by Zdzisław Beksiński

Incubus VIII
(Bloody Hell)

Hell is lonely without my demon--

my personal one, I mean, because

there's no shortage here of devils.

Basting on the liquid lava's lips,
I'm alone in brimstone sunscreen,

no ruby pitchfork's flip

when one side gets too burnt,

no serpent sapient tail to scale me,

just the brisk popping of my cookery.

I thought my demon knew there's no

vaccine for the maenad's bite, that

nothing says forever like damnation.

I was killing more than willing

to lie griddled on bloodred coals

and call it love; but I missed his

listening kiss in the hissing steam.

Hell is lonely, bloody
empty without my demon.

I thought this blistered blaze might hold
his blade-heart's forge, and a hammer pain to

twin us bright as living never did

yet after the first in-twisting, after

first blood spilled

he disappeared

and that is Hell for you.

~June 2013

posted for       dVerse Poets

Karin Gustafson (Manicddaily) challenges us today to deal with the great splitting gemini within us all, to write of twins, twining, combining or uncombining. Though I thought I'd finished with him, as I've written many little scribbles about my twin the Incubus, still he seems to linger somewhere at the back of Hell's waiting room.

  If you'd like to read the others in this series, you can find them  here.

Image: Untitled, by the great Polish surrealist Zdzisław Beksiński may be under copyright. All copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

Gratitude

Gratitude

is a kind of ash

that blows in volcano wind,

falling opal featherscales hissed

off by firesnakes that coil

islands in the sea,

all we have left perhaps

of rocky miles of ore and gold

stacked heavy in earth's shadowbox

melting in a pressured flux

spit out to lift a mountain

from the fire.

~November 2012

55 serpent feathers for   the g-man

Happy Thanksgiving to All

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