Accountant
At the office
in the afternoon
letters change to ash,
a black road
printed round the mind.
But no one
but the ink hunts
for a way home.
Poems on the topic: ash
Poems on the topic “ash” on Poets.by.
End of winter
ice all gone
the city a treasury
of ash
The day the music died
My song died,
a note gone to ash.
My flageolette got an ague.
My shot harp sat
in a bed of nails.
The Hollow (27)
another ash I never noticed
lit up by the sun
its death let in
for so many years
I saw it as an eye
island in the stream
don’t call them Indian graves
these mounds
that once held roots
God or microbes
everywhere you look
undiscovered
Burning the tissues
In a snow-bound ring of stones,
I am burning all the tissues
from my recent cold.
The sun beats down. Fallen twigs
and leaves are melting themselves
into form-fitting graves.
A flat wing of ash floats up
and hangs in the air
like a famous last word.
Colours
Red,
Black,
White.
Blood,
Ash,
Flesh.
Maroon,
Crimson,
Scarlet.
Shades of,
Vampiric,
Dessert.
Charred,
Burned,
Blacken.
Shades of,
Stepping stones
Jade stone,
Engravings,
Predictions.
Prophecies,
Holding only,
Fiction.
Masterpieces,
Based on,
Nightmares.
Soldiers,
Parading,
On corpses.
A city built,
On another's,
Ashes.
Dead used,
From Tongari
the first time I remember you, you're blonde and don't love me back.
I wish it stayed that way. but soon You're brunette
and You do. It's the sweetest thing I've ever tasted.
Your brown hair was like hot chocolate in autumn,
wool gloves in the snow,
a candy store in February.
it never occurred to me that
candy rots, gloves get soaked, and chocolate residue
pools at the bottom of mugs like tea leaves.
then, You're a red head with fading freckles and a consuming love.
i stay because i feel responsible.
maybe loving me is just as addicting as loving You.
i stay because that burning is intense, yes, but it
reminds me of past candlelit dinners.
warmth and heat are one and the same, aren't they?
Phoenix
my bones, charred and brittle,
scream underneath my weight.
dark. it's so dark in here.
my heart, licked by the sudden flames,
threatens to burst.
ashes fill my shriveled lungs.
my skin, branded for all to see,
itches and burns.
water. i need water.
please.
help me.
Combustion
it started down at his feet
licking his toes with just bearable heat
but then it crawled up and up and up
singeing his hair and scarring his lips
a raging inferno he couldn't predict
what happened?
where did this come from?
how did it start?
who?
but all his answers are screams
tainted in ashes
Poem for Hustlers
a roman candle
the young queen:
Claree/screaming/spewing
bright colors everywhere
& falls like a pile of gray ashes
on 42nd street
ashes to ashes
i have completely erased
your footprints in my room,
replacing them with the ash
that now circulates in this space
i can only call my own. memories,
from the ash of one they arise,
to the ash of another they fall,
the soil is overturned, exposing
the fresh life within old earth.
your scent seeps into my
bloodstream, infusing into sunken-
in memories now remembered in
sepia. its touch clings to my
cold hands, the air-con hums again
at 23 degrees, the bed is ever too
high, the curtains are drawn once more,
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