Burning Both Ends

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A
flicker,
a stare,
fires the
column,
bled bare,
by the pale
yellow, violet
flame
as

its gliding wax
grips and its rhythmic drip sets fast,
and not unlike our game.
The Slowness of time
runs with our thoughts down
this vine as I tease the quick
with scorched fingers. And, as
is your want, you navigate me,
and like moths, we
self destruct when we linger.
A stolid breath of air soon releases our
stares, and we flinch in the
flame’s parting sigh;
its sulphuric stench from the quickening
wrench, reminds me of that
stark light – as
sleeping birds hum
and a candlelit morn draws nigh.

Sappho: a small tribute

I speak rightly –
set not my words to music,
nor douse them in tune to vast breaths
of  tempests’
contemplative praise.

I am among you as mortal,
still.  But, please, breathe freely –
at least for a time,
then let me be to eager rests’
devoted arms –

of course your strewn petals,
benign at my feet,
speak calmly of foe and friend –
draw me close to your wondrous
adoration;  so separate me not from music’s glow

when such fragments tear you
into fractious, scattered pieces –
and so it is perhaps that great art’s worship
be confined to symbolic gesture.

I am not lost, and I am not gone
whilst echoes play
with such innocence
and voices call me.  I am translucent.
Gleaned from me is the skin you were denied.
I am always yours.  I am diaphanous.

Walnut

poetry-surreal-trees-walnut-writingasitcomes

Poetry dances me,
with its incorrigible vice.
In the beauty of silence
naked jawbones crack
a fleshless shudder.
Torrid words smirk,
as they fall into your walnut air
in small pieces.
Particles, heavy of scent,
cascade
from my mouth
exploding further
into this silence –
silence is the page we write on –
dance with me.

Scarlet Dreams #Quadrille

Picture:  Thank you, Paul Militaru

Scarlet dreams
wrap me in their curls
and curves of passion,
tie knots in colourless air
while bodies cup the aromas
of fleeting yesterday
to cool the moist
aura of good times held softly
until each petal falls softly –
fingers flexed and interlocked.

A Quadrille is a 44 word verse.