Aloha

Everybody's Home

Burns to the ground

At some point

The scenery changes

Like that

Old memory of

Open fields

Filled in with

Buildings

Now 

Vacant and

Antiquated after

Remote working

Everybody's Home. 

Painting by Jules Tavernier, 'Kilauea Caldera Sandwich Islands' c. 1886 at San Diego Art Museum in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Cave man

 

I stepped up to the mouth

of the dark hole,

a flicker catching my curious

necessity for heat 

as in a fondness for friction

something strong stirs

in this cave

I come to find

as my eyes adjust

not some majestic dragon

as projected upon the moist stone wall

but a shriveled and scarred ogre

unseen to himself and flesh burnt

by the venomous flames uncoiling

from his own sharp tongue

lashing.

The smoke and singe surround every crevice

a decrepid and deathly stench 

steams from his chest where 

his heart rotted in the darkness

called some body and vacant vessel

vulnerable and afraid 

of all the elements

that make 

a man. 

Photography: Albert Grünwedel (July 31, 1856 – October 28, 1935), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Cardiac muscle

 

Any-one-of-Us

who have heard

the shattering of a heart,

of a world

fragmented, knows the 

intent to deafen each piercing note...

Those of Us 

who have struggled with intruding songs and scents, 

are stuck in a triggered trap, clamped

between sharp teeth

and resisting no more,

alone. 

Some of Us 

disagree 

with how lovely it is to have lost

than never have had

played a game we did not know.

Intuition, like embers emit no smoke,

but deep connections 

lean candle flames without a breeze.

It can be felt,

on fingertips, burnt leaves, ashes-

heat is Life.

Death is a dampening, silent

as in, buried Alive.

And I know

how these memories 

refuse departure.

On the ancient land where I now stand-

my story is held momentarily

footprints in the red dirt 

alone, cauterized, singed, 

and dappled with sunlight.

Fire with fire.

Most of Us

will not get that close

ever again.

None of Us

understand 

the heart that burns

and beats without Us

skipping over

tiny details like nails

hammered into the heartwood. 

Artwork by: Sigmund Grimm, dated 1520 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Fear, Walls, and Fiery Tales

I stepped up
to the mouth of the cave
my chest plated-
the flickering light
sparking
my curious compulsion
for heat.

Come to find
not some majestic dragon
as projected upon a dirt wall
but an angry ogre
whose tongue sparks
and lashes out like
new flames.

The smoke
thick and decrepit,
his heart rots within
while his rosy cheeks,
black lips and eyes a glow
at me.
Despite this
I know, I am safe.

He will never leave
his inner rage

for the stronger
light of day.
And I could feel the heat
from behind
beckoning me back
to a place without...



Artwork by Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), 'Seated Giant' circa 1818, in Public Domain. 

Fire Rite

He lit all of my gasoline
and boasted,
This is jet fuel baby,
I burn it all.

It was reckless of me
to expose my reserve tank
within such close proximity
to predictable ignition.

Not even a triangular flag
waves a nauseous warning
over fanned flames,
choked up
only to be licked with sharp tongues.

The day burns its long wick
down to the bare wax molded
mannequin of myself
who whispers Empty

in the end,

when the fire finally consumes itself
he calls it,
Raw Power as combustion
can be counted upon
inevitably
given enough
desire
to fill the stone curb well

with ashes.



Painting by Nikolai Astrup, 'Midsummer eve bonfire' c. 1915 in Public domain.

Spark-ling

For the small moment
You did it,
rekindled the small boy scout fire,
Had fun, for a time,
Were occupied
Stoked and prodded.

Handy to have more than wood to burn.
It was not enough to last
Through the cold night.
The steam and smoke billows and blows out.
The rain sidles in with heavy
Clouded feet.
Light becomes heavy
And I reminisce over
That time we shared this manmade heat without duty
Or blame,
Was love.

Togetherness said nothing
To explain or justify its purpose
Save
Sharing the warmth emitted from
One another.

My cheeks redden for other reasons
Than blood boiling laced with whiskey

See, we don't see
The same
Pleasure or Pain
Under heat, inside pressure, cold edges and sharp sounds
like sticks piled inside the stone hearth,
a resonance is echoed in our porous bones.

There is a classical tune
Evoking
Times past and a comfort
that stays
Lost in our presence.



Painting by John George Brown (1831-1913) 'Camp in Vermont' c. 1879 in Public Domain. 

drawing with charcoal

Seething and sizzles
with intermittent sparks,

This dawn cracks
its sharp end

Making wake
a current state of fray

Today
may bring light

By ignition
cauterized by the heart.



Painting by Alphonse Asselbergs (1839-1916), 'Around a Fire in the Forest', in Public Domain. 

Combustible

Blinded and spotted
with double vision
of two
dancing around
the ring, the pit, the issues,
the pyre and flames,
the names
we use
in Love...

The elements
were all presiding
outdoors.
The smoke moves us
around
the light flickers
and pops as it catches
on...

This orange glow,
we know
the truth is
coming together
these cold nights
bonfires seeking
vanity
are explosive,
knotted and ingrained.

We agree
wholeheartedly,
we are only we,
individually.


Painting by Paul Gaugin, 'Upa, Upa (the fire dance)' c. 1891 in Public Domain. 

The old flame

I have been sucking on rage
                    like a Jolly Rancher
                    all day-

They say
sucking calms coughing
                        fits, since we cannot do both
simultaneously.

The sun is blazing behind
                               the thunderheads
                               making the air tepid-

Did I mention the fire
                        coursing under the skin
                        causing the concrete to ripple
                         and fingers to spark?

Steam smolders in pillars from atop fences
as if the candles
were blown out.

Love and Hate, like thermodynamics,
                          compromises

I stand in between
with my lips stained red,
             a saccharin taste of cinnamon
that was once my favorite

reminds me
of our in-
consistencies.

Still,
I struggle to breathe.





Painting by Henry John Stock (1853-1930) in Public Domain.

tepidity

I said my feet were frozen,
he did not care
but took notice of my canvas shoes
atop the icy mud.

The fire he made,
started by Him,
should have been
enough-

but the wood was wet
atop the dirt that was sand,
the grass still green despite the dew
the smoke swirled
inside the pit.

His forehead and eyes settled into the comfortable scowl,
his red cheeks took upon themselves an orange glow
and I knew he felt
contentment.

I smiled at him over the inferno.
He often mocked
the speed at which I walked
on December nights near the open sea.

After explaining over my shoulder,
like salt,
why the air felt so distinctly different
between us

he said no more about what he could not feel.

Together,
we find our way
a-part
of accepting
differences by degrees.



Artwork by Felix Nussbaum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Global warming Returns

There was fire reflected in his eyes,

and though he had been so kind lately,

been treating me tenderly,

it all shattered 

in the calm evening 

after dinner was served and the dishes were done.

There was no wind but things carried. 

He screamed at me 

from the doorway, from deep in his diaphragm,

‘Get Out Now!’

And I thought he was angry at me 

for a flashing moment-I felt

enraged-by the tone.

I noticed, however,

his face was glowing-not from

the evening sunset.

My eyes went south-

east, thirty feet tall, 

a basket of burning serpents

squirmed atop a roof and were licking  the sky,

devouring a tree,

the roof next door is on fire! 

A black plume expands like dye in water,

like a volcano that erupts before projecting 

sound.

In the long hot silence, 

before the sirens in the distance, 

my heart

strains to find a steady rhythm amidst

the pops, cracks and snaps. 

The cats are hiding, children are 

lining the street filming,

hoses are flowing anemic,

I am frozen in place.

I think of how we just survived the flood.

When the fire finally died, 

we waited for the third

and last

good Friday before we may rise and shine

only to be born again

on Sunday. 

Painting by George Hitchcock c. 1904, 'Easter Sunday' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Act your aim

When we stay in line
like good little pixels
stacking up our boxes
edge to edge
we may notice
the oval, all circularity
is pointed, adjacently
and saved, if needed.

Connections and karma
are just
arrows attempting to be
boomerangs.

Hunters and gatherers,
acting in accord
with the right angles,
took shape, called it chalice,
and carried it with us
empty-everywhere

beginning and ending with "Fire"
-there was nothing-
to hold us together but the sphere.

1st(Top) Painting by Douglas Volk, 'The boy with the arrow' (1903) in [Public domain or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

2nd Image Info: John Gower in a portrait from a book with his Vox Clamantis and Chronica Tripertita in Glasgow Univ. Lib., MS Hunter 59 (T.2.17) folio 6v. This is from a revised edition of the book published c. 1400 (before Gower's death). Gower is depicted as an archer with a bow and arrow. Gower prepares to shoot the world, a sphere with compartments representing earth, air, and water.
Text on the above image in one version of the Vox Clamantis reads "I throw my darts and shoot my arrows at the world. But where there is a righteous man, no arrow strikes. But I wound those who live wickedly. Therefore let him who recognizes himself there look to himself." 

bed of coals

Enveiled, as usual
lifted my eyes by the chin
you invited me in

a place I know, have been
sitting by the fire-place.
And only on this hearth

have I seen illumination
made warmer
by generous raditation

over time and across space
between us-apart-of something else
that remains Otherness

between bonds like breath
we share aglow,
rekindled when struck together.



Painting by Santiago Rusiñol (1894) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Conversion: Haiku(s) 3

To start to learn a

Poem, beginning in love

Ends inside physics.

To try to poem

Muse in music but listen

Particulate-ly.

Make something better

Hang words, draw self, a stick man

The fire needs you.

Image: Edward Steichen, 1921 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Description from wiki: "Steichen was on holiday in Venice in 1921 at the same time as the dancer Isadora Duncan who was on her way to Greece with her dance troupe. With the promise that Steichen would be able to make motion pictures of her dancing on the Acropolis, Isadora persuaded him to accompany her. While she managed to pose for a few photographs at the Parthenon, it was with her pupil and adopted daughter Thérèse that Steichen produced this startling and remarkable image: She was a living reincarnation of a Greek nymph. Once, while photographing the Parthenon, I lost sight of her, but I could hear her. When I asked where she was, she raised her arms in answer. I swung the camera around and photographed her arms against the background of the Erechtheum. And then we went out to a part of the Acropolis behind the Parthenon, and she posed on a rock, against the sky with her Greek garments. The wind pressed the garments tight to her body, and the ends were left flapping and fluttering. They actually crackled. This gave the effect of fire -- 'Wind Fire' (Steichen, A Life in Photography, np)"

Pro-Me-The-Us

Smoldering is the only thing I can do for me.
The pungent sulphur of hurt flesh
waits to be sucked in.
The mind wanders as the only means of escape.
Don't bother counting loses like sheep.
All that matters
rebuilds itself in scar and calcium.
Atomically interested in erector sets,
likeness, hinged on proteins
means this attraction
is greater than one.
The smoke signal I sent
lays low, lingers spinning rings faintly
into heat haze.
I have become consumed in the carbon blaze.
Energy spent as a violent commodity, Life.
Yet by now the fire is finally dying
and yet sparks may remain if latent,
nameless and noxious,
potentially smothered by this body.
None will re-ember
the dank smell
of arson
on your soul.
Although
just about
anyone will warm their hands
over hot coals.


Painting by Hubert Maurer, c. 18th century [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Flame thrower

The children were called Embers
The parents roaring Flames
and in old age they All
became Coals.

Consumers only content
and subdued when all fuel
has been spent, lying low
until rekindled
into reaction
by a taunting breeze.

Always reaching
Up
for more
while leeching all the colors
and converting it into
expendable heat.

Dancing on destruction,
memories bridging by a spark,
the arc spans its dire
detonation
as quick as a wick
lying
next to another already lit.

Together the family,
kindling flames,
carry their torches
and blames. Sterno
for their kindred Inferno.




Image flame match strike, full color spectrum [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Little Ms. Pants on Fire

My black jacket with the fur-rimmed hood
whispered in my ear yesterday,
that one day
we will go live in the snow.
Although, we don't talk much,
since I live near (warm) San Diego
(now) it has been cold
so we've been friendly lately.
Then, when
I was having dinner
with a lemon verbena candle
the other night, thyme on the table
I read something interesting,
which actually gave me quite a fright-
but the candle jumped in and uttered a spark,
'You wont die in the dark-
and it wont be from fire,
those words were written by a liar!
Tho', idle fears, I have years and
I don't necessarily think so-
acrophobia,  arachnophobia and pyromania.
Fear, Love and Webs, scary things
to get tangled in.
To things I harbor like hobos
And as I begin to listen in
to assorted precocious objects,
threadbare trinkets and baubles that pop
I harbor like lazy houseguests,
I still hear the ring of fear
in the old quaking clock
five-fifty-five-tic-tock
five-fifty-five-tock-tic
I was told
this fateful mortal time
I accommodate and appropriate,
still chimes in my head.
My watch has no comment,

it's face, expressionless
and lays like a remora, leech.
I proceed  with today anyway

as though I too, 

have no need to know
such sagacious

miscellaneous things

such as where, and when, by how

I will die, not now

from animated things with no eyes
who see my future
and how it
lies. 

Composed 1/18/16.

Image by By Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The disaster in me

Gasp

gusty winds aloft

Tremble

strings of faulty nerves

Flooded

emotional levee buckles

damned

storm

surges

Quaking knees

collapse

Heat waves

carried by ripping currents

that pull me deeper

nearer

the purple flame

Fire

accelerated

I am a natural disaster.

Image by Leonardo da Vinci, 1517-1518, Natural Disaster [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Smoke inhalation

Desire

is a fire

that goes out

when it's not stoked.

Man

started fire.

A fire

does require

your full attention once lit.

Flare-ups. Smoke signals. Errant sparks.

Women 

tend the fire.

Desire 

is combustible

unless retardant is applied.

Burned. Back-fired. Scorched.

A fire

Does indeed need both fuel and freedom and air.

As lightning steals its rightful thunder

We extinguish

Without an ignition point.

Image by Carl Svante Hallbeck, (1826-1897) of Sweden [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.