All The Good Reasons That Get In The Way Of Writing
All the good reasons that get in the way of writing,
baby needs new shoes, and you're conscientious and diligent,
will kill you faster than the bad ones
that brought you to the edge of your mindstream in the first place
to dip your skull like the cup of the moon
in the wellsprings of your own imagination
instead of always sipping spit from other men's mouths.
I'm not saying don't do what you must do
to be a decent human being, or as close as you can get,
but when you're creatively underwhelmed
by the rising Rockies of Circumstance
losing their footing like an avalanche of cornerstones
coming down on you like a barrage of asteroids,
you better find a mountain gear deep within yourself
to power you out of the way of your own collapsing mindscape.
Don't come to a reasonable truce with the ashen exigencies
of the underwhelming reality love married you to,
or pontificate like a hollow urn on the tragic absence
of even so much as an echo of yourself to make a comeback
or tell me you squandered it all like apple bloom
when everything I've read of what you haven't written
smells like smoke from a distant pyre on the wind.
Remember the fire. Even if you have to burn underground
through the occult roots of the cedars, or bury yourself
powdered in red ochre under the hearthstones
of your prophetic forebears erasing your picture-music
from the cave walls like graffiti under a bridge
between this world as it never is when you look too closely,
and the one that's working on you like spiritual water on limestone.
Remember the fire. Remember the discipline
of disobedience that tempted you to steal it in the first place
like a Spartan boy with a hot fox, as it
eats you from the outside in without you saying a word
lest you get caught ratting your deepest secret out in agony.
Or regenerative Prometheus chained to a rock like a salamander
born in the fire of his own afterbirth. Know this.
Lightning doesn't strike the roosters of fire
that crow like weathervanes pinned
like a medal from an old campaign to the axis of the wind
as if the dawn were some kind of triumph over the night.
Cradle that fire in your hands like a bird that's fallen to earth,
or a lamp of holy oil in a niche of unanswered longings,
a candle in a hurricane of boarded up windows,
the light of your own mind, casting shadows of time
like a sundial with a wilder imagination
than its usefulness might at first glance suggest.
Nor will it do to catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,
or pour gold down your throat like the Parthians did Crassus
and expect to shine like a lighthouse in a diamond mine
with the voice of an oracular canary in a cage.
You've got to live inexhaustibly
what you're going to write about first
if you want to burn down the Library of Alexandria
in a gamma ray burst of creative annihilation
because you can only master as much life
as you've surrendered to like a heretic at the stake
or a pine cone germinating the seeds of enlightenment
like a zen hermit in a forest fire. Don't take
all the beautiful green swords flaming like wild irises
whose beauty you fall upon like an honourable death
and abuse them like the palings of a gate or a fence around paradise.
Even if you've only got a firefly of talent
left in the caldera of an extinct volcano,
a spark in the firepit of a burnt out dragon,
a smouldering ember from last night's fire in the stove
on a cold morning when the windows are blazing with ice,
you must be crazy and wise enough oxymoronically
to be the benign tyrant of your own Golden Age
like Pericles of Athens, with a politically incorrect
lover for a muse you look upon like the Parthenon
as if she were a phase of the moon. Even if
you love the swaying silver of the wind
over the heavy-grained harvest breaking water
like a bell under a redundant blue moon,
don't shrink from threshing it if you want to
share it like bread with people as hungry as you are
to eat the heart of the king of the waxing year,
like Wodin made a sacrifice of himself to himself,
or life thrives on itself like a soccer team
that crashed landed on a mountaintop,
or the cosmic eggs of turtles feeds a manger of seagulls,
and the grass eats the grazer, and the grazer eats the grass.
Or if you're too sensitive to compassionately take life
in order to give it, sharpen the edge of your golden sickle
on the whetstone of the moon, and express your mercy
as Muhammad suggested, with a quick kill
you can hold love responsible for like a spiritual alibi
if you've got genius enough to heal it like a inspired liar.
You have to be part salmon. A battering ram
swimming upstream against the flow of circumstance
like the gate of a water castle you're besieging
to lay your blunted sword down in tribute
among the sacred pools of life that gave it to you
at the beginning of your song, like fire from their eyes
to wage a holy war of one on their behalf
you're doomed to lose like a conflict that progresses
from one defeat to the next against ever stronger adversaries,
angels in the way, shaitans obstructing the path for your own good,
who realize, too late, with every encounter,
you're growing stronger than the best reasons
could have anticipated strategically.
Be a good apple tree, lyrically seasoned and epically strong
as Lao Tzu and the Druid aptly described you
like the sacred syllable in the heartwood of the letter Q,
and express yourself completely without intending
the betterment of anything, though all do,
from wasps and birds to bears and humans
with the beauty of your blossoms, the wisdom of your leaves,
and the generosity of the sacrifice that laid you out
like a windfall of dice enshrining the eyes that can see
like seeds in the sibylline books of the apple
the risk they'll need to take tomorrow like a fire swallower
of the sun and the moon to keep their planets shining
from the inside out in the Goldilocks zone
of a light that's been sweetened immanentally
by a dangerously habitable life holding up
a lantern in the dark that disappointment, defeat and struggle
could no more put out than a volunteer fire brigade of waterclocks
for the best of reasons could put out the stars in an arsonist's heart.
Set the world afire like a flame that writes on the wind,
poppies flaring uncontrollably across your field of vision.
Burn like a two-eyed passion for everything
you can see and be on the earth that consumes you
in the equinoctial fires of your vernal immolations,
not a magnifying glass that intensifies the sun into
the capricious focus of an idle boy on a cruel afternoon
shepherding ants like prophetic semi-colons into a furnace.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Nightbird On A Winter Branch
Nightbird on a winter branch.
Dark blossom of the new moon,
Last kiss on the eyelids of the dead
As the snow falls like apple bloom.
I see you’ve left the door ajar:
The backdoor of an eclipse
To let the first crescent of the light out.
The sacred syllable of the mistfits
Lost in the silence and the solitude
You raise like heretical mystics into songs
That only you alone can sing
So that each in their homelessness belongs
To the false dawn of the same secret
They weep over like empty lockets
That stole the moon from their windows
As they burned at the stake, rockets
Martyred in the fire of the holy books
That inspire them deeper into exile
This late at night far from anywhere
Distance is measured by the mile
And not the wingspan of the light-years
It’s taken me to write this.
Like a bird that flew out of the darkness,
That left no trace of the witness
As it blew a kiss of sudden insight.
A word in passing from the dead
About who’s behind the death mask
Of the snow that’s covering my head
Like the polar ice cap of a planet
With the prophetic wisdom of a skull.
Life in the birthmark of the new.
Death in the harvest of the moon at full.
Emptiness devoid of all light.
The first sign of renewal in the urn
Of a nightbird on a winter branch.
Diamonds of ice and insight that burn
Like coal in the eyes of a snow man
With the passion of a phoenix born
A star in the cold furnace of the sky.
Where every passage is a rite of return
That hides its brightest jewels
blossoming like enlightenment on the wing
In the dark ore of a nightbird
When a deathmask opens its mouth to sing.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Catch A Fire
Me and you
Ooh
In the heat of the sun
Our life has begun
Like a flame
Me and you
Ooh
All alone in the sand
I will burn in your hand
And my sould will arise to the sky
Catch a wind, catch a rainbow, catch a fire
Catch a fire, catch a fire
Catch a wind, catch a rainbow, catch a fire
Catch a wind, catch a rainbow, catch a fire
Catch a fire
Me and you
Ooh
In the night we will hide
In the flow of the tide
Oh the shore
Me and you
Ooh
There's a message for me
In the sound fo the sea
I must hold you and never let go
You just gotta go
All you need
You can have
All my, all my, all my love
song performed by by Haddaway
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Lament Of The Last Train Whistle
The lament of the last train whistle
has disappeared into the distance
mournfully looking for its lost child.
October night in the woods
around an old fire pit of prophetic skulls
blowing ghosts of smoke in my face
that bring me to tears, a neolithic calendar
of all the old and new moons that have passed.
So many, so much, that used to matter
doesn't anymore. Dream figures
that shed their skins like the longer wavelengths
of watersnakes in an infra-red mindscape
of serpent fire dying like the sun
that can tell the hour by the taste of its ashes.
I throw more well-dried thresholds on the fire
like branches that used to be green with the tears
of sweeter departures and arrivals over the years.
All the light's jumped from orbitals
of the tree rings that sag like bags
under the eyes knotted like islands
in the heartwood of their xylem and phloem.
Here where the river parts like long hair
on the skull of a stone, I sit like a demon
in a sacred place, clarified, alert, and alone
as any nocturnal animal in the woods.
The chalkdust of my bones trying
to connect the stars to their constellations
snagged in the trees like the rags of spiderwebs
on the blackboard of a starmap as wide as the sky
and deep as the subconscious of the Burgess Shale.
It's not a betrayal to let go of your faith
when you had none in the first place
and you don't need a parachute on the edge of space
to plunge from paradise, or a weather balloon
of a bad Christian poet to shepherd Dante
like a moon out of hell. Be yourself,
especially when nobody's watching
except that same drone in the sky
that occasionally flashes a flake of silver off
its stone cold third eye to flint your awareness
that it's still there in the cosmic background
like a witness to your dreams and schemes
for a luxuriously appointed life of enlightenment.
Be yourself. The direct copulative imperative
that has supplanted the light as the first word
out of the mouth of creation. Be yourself.
And then let there be light by the side of a good fire
to let you see who that is as acutely
as you can see in the dark who that is not.
The migration of the Canada geese might seem
a broken rosary of new moons calling out
the names of God to you, and one unknown,
or silhouetted against the moon they might
suggest the afterbirth attached to a cut umbilical cord
and your heart might feel reborn somewhere
in the autumn of your life, a child of the fire,
a flower in the full bloom of its solitude
dancing with its own mercurial apparition
on the waters of life in the mindstream
always out of season enough to lag behind
so it can tell the time by the widening gaps in its passage
as it's waiting for the night to catch up to its own shining
like a thief of fire unchained from the rock
that broke the glass window of its transfixed seeing
with a meteor in the hands of an enlightened delinquent.
Or you might read the falling leaves as occult lifelines
on a Tarot deck of overlapping lifespans
like the scales of a dragon playing solitaire
beside the small inferno of a signal fire to the stars,
to let them know you're coming faster
than the time it takes for a thought to make it
all the way to death and back to birth again
as if you were pinging your emotions
like stray wavelengths from the oceans of your awareness
off the horns of the moon the way
you used to skip rocks out over the sea as a boy
to see how long they would keep on going
like a waterclock of stone before they sank
like the flying fish of the hard, cold facts of life back into
the numinous depths of your collective unknowing
where the stars aren't fixed to anything that isn't
flowing along with them like the wind on the mindstream
or a small fire catching its breath in the silence and the solitude
of so much radiance, before it's on its way again for good.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Passion of Fire
My heart was started by a spark,
burst into flames.
Now I am like a lamp on a hill,
everyone sees me and my passion.
I'm on fire, I'm burning bright.
You made the spark,
kindled the flame,
gave this fire the passion of the night.
Its burning bright, through the night,
its never going out or dimming.
Its the passion of the fire,
its the passion of life.
The life you gave,
was meant to amaze.
Now with you in me,
I illuminate the darkness.
I'm on fire,
running with the flame, the passion
touching people,
letting them catch the fire, catch your Love.
It never fades away,
this passion deep in me,
it'll burn till the end of day.
poem by Mistral Love
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Forever
Slowly fading blue
The eastern hollows catch
The dying sun
Night time follows
Silent and black
Mirror pool mirrors
The lonely place
Where I meet you
See your head
In the fading light
And through the dark
Your eyes shine bright
And burn like fire
Burn like fire in Cairo
Burn like fire
Burn like fire in Cairo
Shifting crimson veil
Silken hips slide
Under my hand
Swollen lips whisper my name
And I yearn
You take me in your arms
And start to burn
F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O
Then the heat disappears
And the mirage
Fades away...
F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O
Burn like a fire in Cairo
Burn like a fire
Blaze like a fire in Cairo
Blaze like a fire
Flare with a wonderful light
Like a fire in Cairo
Burn like fire
Burn like
Fire in Cairo
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Do Not Threaten Me With Fire My Love
do not threaten me with the fire of your body my love
for i am a man born of fire and shall die of fire
i eat fire, i bathe in fire, i swim in the deepest part of fire
i like to burn in the fire that you start
from your flicker, from the flints of your gaze
i like to see this hearth, this warmth, this conflagration
you with me burning like hell
do not threaten me with the fire of your thighs
for i eat fire, my body is fire, it is alive with its heat
my sweat are the smokes of fire
my end is the char that stays beside your legs
and tomorrow morning when i finally die
when i am put off by your power
you shall find me as burnt residues
beneath your feet
i am the offering of love to life.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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What Do You Want With Me
You live in a mansion, with your own private harbor
And you own an island, where you go every summer
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
You're been educated in the best schools all around the world
Life is simple when people hang on your every word
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
Your father is a leader and unknown to the world
A puppet master of billions, and your his little girl
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
You mother has a club in Rome where the elite come to gather
Illuminated by fine conversation, while enjoying their evening supper
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
Your riches can't buy everything
Your riches can't buy everything
You are a collector of unique and very precious things
And store them for safe keeping, hoping to save them
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
What do you want with me, Earth, wind, water, or fire
Copyright Colin Coplin 2012
poem by Colin Coplin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Brighter The Light, The Deeper The Shadow
for Rebekah Garland
The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.
Shine. And anyone who can see will follow.
Just make sure the stars are real and not tinfoil.
You don't need to know where you're going
to be a good guide when you yourself are the path you're on.
Shine. You're the blue orchid in the Pleiades.
You're the firefly in the skull that kicked in
like a bioluminescent emergency light
when the dead woke up to discover they had no eyes.
You're the last candle dancing to the pulse of the dragon's heart.
You have suffered and lost. Suffered and won.
Suffered and healed like wounded water on the moon.
Shine like a fountainmouth. Shine like a watershed
that can feel the galaxies swimming through it like starfish
whirling like Sufis at the crossroads of a black hole
like the navel of the wheeling world with the singularity
of a hidden jewel in it like the third eye of a lump of coal
shining out like a diamond of the first magnitude.
You can do cartwheels across the sky
as if your legs and arms were spokes.
You can listen for a voice in the abyss of time and silence
until your ears turn into radio telescopes
turning like calla lilies on a jinxed prayer wheel
looking for signs of extraterrestrial rural life
like pendulous Zen pagodas hanging like bird feeders
on the errant limb of a locust tree, waiting for birds.
Shine like a sword of fire outside the gates of your re-entry
from a long return journey of the smokey dove
that wasn't sacrificed, but volunteered
to go see what happened to the crow that was sent out first
to witch for land with an olive branch of lightning in its beak
as a sign of the truce we seek with the rain,
we seek through our tears, we seek like the new moon
wholly reflected in every plinth of our shattered mirrors
of what appeared to be real, until, like hungry ghosts
we tried to grasp it and it slipped through our fingers
like an hourglass full of stars, a rosary of Canada geese,
a slaver's neckchain made of gold like a Celtic torgue.
Shine. I know there's a genie of blue hydrogen in your lamp
and you don't need a nightwatchman to ignite it every night,
though I expect you'd meet up later at a seance,
like the creative medium of a spiritual adept at sensual silence.
But when you do, you fire up hell like a school furnace
as easily as you illuminate paradise with a poppy and a sunflower.
Shine. This is your hour. When it's darkest and it matters the most.
Be a lighthouse off your own shipwrecked coast.
Be the many-petalled matchbook of a flower that blooms in fire
once every seven thousand years, and when the wind
doesn't feed it anything but the milk and bread of ghosts,
I know you've got the ferocious courage
not to blow it out just because you can. Shine
like a wavelength ploughing the dead seas of the moon
like a garden it intends to plant in its wake
that will keep on expanding like the growing edge
of tree rings emanating like cambium from the heartwood
of a cosmic tree that never stops bearing fruit
even when it feels like a Pre-Cambrian tree in a petrified forest
under the Arctic ice of a new polarized ice age.
Don't hide in the weeds and the shadows
of the star you were meant to be at this zenith
of your ascendency whether you're peaking or at nadir.
Shine. And let me see if I can recognize by one star alone
what constellation you're shapeshifting into
like a starmap with flightpaths and insights of her own
through the eye of the hurricane
in the crowns of the black walnut trees
where the nightbirds are waiting as autumn's coming on
for you to show them how to make their own way home.
Be a lamp in the arms of your own journey.
Just as the moon that's apprenticed like a sorceress
to all the phases of your beautiful, crazy wisdom is.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fire In Cairo
Slowly fading blue
The eastern hollows catch
The dying sun
Night-time follows
Silence and black
Mirror pool mirrors
The lonely place
Where i meet you
See your head
In the fading light
And through the dark
Your eyes shine bright
And burn
Like fire
Burn like fire in cairo
Burn like fire
Burn like fire in cairo
Shifting crimson veil
Silken hips slide
Under my hand
Swollen lips whisper
My name
And i yearn
You take me in your arms
And start to burn
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
Then the heat disappears
And the mirage
Fades away
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
F-i-r-e-i-n-c-a-i-r-o
Burn like a fire in cairo
Burn like a
Fire
Blaze like a fire in cairo
Blaze like a
Fire
Flare
Burn like fire
Burn like
Fire in cairo
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Light My Fire
You know that it would be untrue
You know that i would be a liar
If i was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
Time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
Aouh, come on!
Come on, babe!
Yeah! come on!
Come on!
Woaouh! yeah!
It was the greatest night of my life.
Although i still had not found a wife
I had my friends
Right there beside me.
We were close together.
We tripped the wall, we scaled the graveyard
Ancient shapes were all around us.
The wet dew felt fresh beside the fog.
Two made love in an ancient spot
One chased a rabbit into the dark
A girl got drunk and balled the dead
And i gave empty sermons to my head.
Cemetary, cool and quiet
Hate to leave your sacred lay
Dread the milky coming of the day.
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Ah, ah, ah, ah!
Aah, aah, aah, aah, aah
Aah, aah, aah, aaah!
Time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
Know that it would be untrue
You know that i would be a liar
If i was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
Try to set the night on fire
Try to set the night on fire
Try to set the night on fire!
All right, all right!
All right!
song performed by by Doors
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Heart Said Yes To Everything My Mind Denied
My heart said yes to everything my mind denied.
Certain women, poetry, doorways, cosmic risks,
a few back country roads that knew enough not
to ask me where I was going that late at night.
My absurd familiarity with sacred clowns
and this ghost dance of stars I see in their eyes
whenever one of them makes me cry in remembrance
of some old rag of laughter that ran before the bulls
like a rodeo clown in a whiskey barrel of fermented sorrows.
I said yes to exile. I said yes to my homelessness.
I said yes to the reflection of the kid
in the broken window of the burning orphanage
he'd just pecked his way out of like the shell of a phoenix.
I said yes to the abyss, to nothing, to emptiness
to the purr of the tides of sand in a desert
combing out the manes of lion-fire
that bloom like spiritual ferocities on the wind.
And I said yes to the rocks on the mountainside
who repeated what my secret teachers had said.
If you're still clinging to one placard of your freedom
you still haven't truly let go. And I said yes
and jumped like a snake at cruising altitude
without a parachute into a sudden enlargement of everything
and said yes to the dragon of that transformation
as it took to the wing like a fire in a furnace.
Yes to the altars when it was time to sacrifice the hero
to the unattainable he surrendered in the name of.
Yes to the dark niches of love
when the candles have gone blind
so much like eye-sockets in a skull beside a wishing well.
Yes was a way of sharing what no
had a tendency of hoarding for a day that never came.
Yes is doing it for everyone. No
does it for no one and can't even make it on its own.
There's something fundamentally revolutionary
and heretical about yes that burns in cleaner fire
than the dirty holy water no washes its hands in
to rid itself of the matter once and for all.
No takes account of every injury like a mandarin
standing off in the shadows of a rain dance of willows
to see who prefers the moonrise to the lightning.
Yes hasn't even figured out it's wounded yet.
Yes is the sacred syllable that all others words aspire to.
Yes opens more eyes than there are stars to look at.
More flowers and doors and hearts to the mystery
than there are keys in the spirit's lost and found
outside the gateless gates to paradise on earth
where no throws its crutches down as things
of no use anymore, and yes, the seed
that everything shape shifts out of
plants them all over the barren mountain side
like rootless trees with a path and a voice of their own
such that every time the lightning strikes another one down,
they say yes, and dropp another pine cone
on the fire that will give birth to them
like an encyclopedic fortune-cookie
whose cup runneth over with assent.
And, yes, even as the night approaches me
like an animal it no longer has to be wary of,
as the shadows of the trees lengthen into rivers
that disappear into the oceanic deltas of the night
like the leafless boughs of the trees of life
slendering into the sky like smoke from a sacred fire.
And, yes, to the crazy wisdom of this life I'm dreaming
I'm living on behalf of someone else
wholly inconceivable to me, not shallow, not deep,
neither near nor far. Not the intimate familiar
of fireflies, nor yet a perfect stranger to the stars.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Inward Burning Fire
It's a dark path now - I don't know where it leads.
I only know you're not on it.
Insufficient light comes from the flame in my heart.
The fire you started.
This flame rages seeking fuel to burn and survive.
Give me some coal dust from your hair.
Just some green driftwood shavings from your eyes.
Your oaken wood hands warming mine - they're so cold now.
Better yet, an answering warmth
from the fire burning in your heart for mine.
Nothing serves to heal a dying flame as that meeting would.
But that's my fire seeking what will not be found on this path.
So, the flame turns inward to die out.
I hide the smoke.
It was always enough for you alone to know of this kindling within.
In the flame's death it must be secret still.
The fire consumes internally,
seeking out each memory hidden away.
Consuming every thought I ever had of you.
No one knows the fire's rage
until it turns to them and touches.
It will burn on inward
until it has devoured every memory, every feeling
with sustenance left in it.
It's a painful death,
but once the fire exists
it can only consume until it dies.
I know this science. I accept.
I accepted long ago.
The fire is so warm when first kindled.
Soon, I hope and fear,
only ash will be left.
The pain will be over.
I know I'll be cold but I'll rest.
As for now, while it's still burning,
I will make one vow.
I will save one tiny ember.
I will try to keep it warm and safe.
Just in case the path turns - and there you are.
And if a spark still remains within you too
this dear and dreaded fire can rise again.
Though more likely I know -
my little ember will serve only to remind me what warmth was
and burn my fingers.
poem by Meli Secret
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fire on Your Finger
Fire on your finger,
Fire in your eye,
Fire in your spirit,
Fire that won’t die.
Fire in the bare bones of being,
Fire to uphold what’s right,
Fire in the heart of darkness,
Fire to fuel Love’s light.
Fire to burn but not consume,
Fire to learn and not assume,
Fire to live and give living room,
Fire to love and sing her tune.
poem by Tony Jolley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Am Ash
do not threaten me with the fire of your body my love
for i am a man borne of fire and shall die of fire
i eat fire, i bathe in fire, i swim in the deepest part of fire
i like to burn in the fire that you start
from your flicker, from the flints of your gaze
i like to see this hearth, this warmth, this conflagration
you with me burning like hell
do not threaten me with the fire of your thighs
for i eat fire, my body is fire, it is alive with its heat
my sweat fumes are the smokes of fire
my end is the char that stays beside your legs
and tomorrow morning when i finally die
when i am put off by your power
you shall find me as burnt residues
beneath your feet
i am ash
the offering of love to life.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lightning Rose
[note: the first verse is, mysteriously, not sung on the record.]
A song for a girl who lives for the future
A song of the fremen [sic] camps near the river
After the fall -- before the beginning
We build the watchfire every night
We control the water flow
We control the power from fusion
Reactor #12
The walls of the city crumble
I would sing a song fifty feet long
Sweet breezes on pine beaches
The sound of fire
Let it shine let it shine let it shine
Shut down the city lights I want to be with my lady
Build up the watchfires turn down the sun
I been too long in the green fields of rapture
I been too long without bein on the run
Carry the fire from the heart of your lover
Carry the fire where the wild things run
Theres a monster lurking deep in the forest
Lets go and get him when the mornin comes
Rose I need you
Rose cant go without your love
Rose I need you
I cant go without you
I wont go without your love
Oooh rose do you remember all the dances
Remember the miracles and all the crazy chances we took on
Love, love, love -- I want to go beyond
Love, love, love ------ lets go
Inside the walls of forbidden halls
Beyond everything Ive ever hoped or sung
Carry the fire -- beyond all desire
Carry the fire -- brighter than the sun
Rose
Lightning rose
Rose
I wont leave without you
I cant go without your love
Love is a fire in the rose
She rocks me
Shut down the city lights I want to be with my baby
Build up the watchfires turn down the sun
Rose I need to feel you near me
Lightning rose I need you to be strong
Come together warm around the watchfire
Come together till the mornin sun
Open the floodgates and let loose the waters
Stand by the banks and watch the water run
Carry the fire to the heart of the darkness
Carry the fire each and every one
Carry the fire in your hands if you need to
Carry the fire the fire the fire
Let it shine let it shine
Look into the night sky
The walls fall before you
song performed by by Jefferson Starship
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Fire
Fire is my life, fire is my hope, fire is my everything.
Confusion, whipping, whirling never ending.
Always colder, always harder, cruel and devastating all in one.
Fire is my life, fire is my hope, fire is my everything.
Light, I need a light to keep at bay the ever darkening hour.
Searching for warmth, searching to hide, searching to survive.
Fire is my life, fire is my hope, fire is my everything.
A leaf, a twig, anything to find a way.
At last a flame, a hope to guide me from my doom.
Fire is my life, fire is my hope, fire is my everything.
The light is hungry devouring all in its path and growing in strength.
Then suddenly, goodbye mydear with a hiss the light and my salvation go out.
Fire was my life, fire was my hope, fire was my everything.
poem by Angelic Warrior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Four Angels
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree
The Angel of the Earth came down, and offered Earth in fee;
But Adam did not need it,
Nor the plough he would not speed it,
Singing: --"Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
What more can mortal man desire?"
(The Apple Tree's in bud)
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree
The Angel of the Waters offered all the Seas in fee;
But Adam would not take 'em,
Nor the ships he wouldn't make 'em,
Singing:--"Water, Earth and Air and Fire,
What more can mortal man desire? "
(The Apple Tree's in leaf.)
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree
The Angel of the Air he offered all the Air in fee;
But Adam did not crave it,
Nor the flight he wouldn't brave it,
Singing: --"Air and Water, Earth and Fire,
What more can mortal man desire:"
(The Apple Tree's in bloom.)
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree
The Angel of the Fire rose up and not a word said he;
But he wished a flame and made it,
And in Adam's heart he laid it,
Singing: --"Fire, Fire, burning Fire!
Stand up, and reach your heart's desire!"
(The Apple Blossom's set.)
As Adam was a-working outside of Eden-Wall,
He used the Earth, he used the Seas, he used the Air and all;
Till out of black disaster
He arose to be a master
Of Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
But never reached his heart's desire!
(The Apple Tree's cut down!)
poem by Rudyard Kipling
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fire Burns! Fire Burns!
If you like you can enquire
There are rings of fire
There are hearts on fire
There are desert, grass and bush fires
Burning with a red hot rage on a different stage
They burn and mature that one can only admire
O! Fire O! Fire
My heart is on fire
Inside my soul a little flame has transpired
Have my words mis-fired while I speak of fire?
Fire burns like a scorching red-hot sun
And when fire burns its impact is sometimes no fun
Fire burns! Fire burns!
People die, people cry, people sigh
Fire run, run and run
Let's take turns to run before we turn into a bun
When you play with fire your hands will burn
When you lay with fire, heads will surely turn
Fire burns! Fire burns!
A hand pulls a gun and fires
A man goes to work and gets fired
And while I tire, I ask myself am I a liar?
For I speak of the uncontrollable forest fires
That cannot be announced by any town crier
A little spark
A brittle panic attack
A burning flame
A red-hot blaze
In seconds fire can take out an entire space
Fire burns! Fire burns!
And while the fire transpires
I can see the fire in your eyes
A hot passionate desire that flies and flies
And the fire burns and burns
Run, run and run for heads will turn
And the heat will rise like the scorching sun
Fire burns! Fire burns!
I ask silently for a ceasefire
For fire only ignites to inspire more misery
And out of that misery are born some high fliers
Run, run and run for heads will turn
And whatever burns can never be undone
poem by Sylvia Chidi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Elements
earth, water, fire and air
i dont look good and
i dont care
i ride the wind and hold the fire
to love the earth
is my only disire
wild and breezy like the wind
hot and spicy like the fire
rock solid like the earth
ready to chase my each and every disire
sweet and flowing like the water
every day i just get hotter
sweet and spicey i can be both
dont you come way to close
im ready to burn
every day i can take the turn cuz
im the earth, water, fire and air
i dont look good and i wont care.
poem by Sandra Geisell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Between Two Fires
Wisdom reveals the reason why
This life brings so much pain
Yet in the rainbows in the sky
The answers all too plain
When God made man He gave him laws
As all the world now knows
But disobedience opened doors
No sinful man can close
Some fear no God nor judgement day
Some seek the truth on high
But fire to both will come one day
For all are bound to die
Fire will totally burn the earth
This world will cease to be
Yet Fire will lead to second birth
Who soon God’s face will see
Fire will seek each soul in turn
Regardless of their views
But which our flesh one day will burn
Is left for us to choose
From all the earth there’s no one free
However much we doubt
The fire will come for all to see
From which there’s no way out
No force can make God’s Fire retreat
No flesh can dowse the flame
But fire for those at Jesus’ feet
Will only burn their shame
The rest who die still with their crime
Will meet an awesome fate
Then like the flood in Noah’s time
The cry will be “Too late”
poem by Michael P. Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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