write or be written

verb conflagration
Fire river of words
Painting fire didn't work
Couldn't capture liquid
Heat, pulse, quiver, leap
1000 flicker wings
rising to thin dark

Air of presences
Unseen ribbons of prayer

Poems are like this too
Looking into changing
Cannot hold flame, 
Fingers turn to smoke
Burnt fists cindering

Why can't I touch a poem
Word sculpture smoke
Fire is where heat makes
Gifts succors lifts
Our bodies alive

Poems are tree limbs
Burnt offerings
Charring to writing
Stubs. Like fire, poems
Spark, make more poetry

Poetry a way of see
Ing be ing 
Living burning

Trying to paint fire
With words, our limbs
A-light suddenly.
We become fire

Our heads toss up quick
In a roarsnap
Disappearing smoke.
They say it hurts
Or maybe that's the pyre
All in, a smoke breath
Consumed by wordfire

Just letitgowhoosh
Creative immolation
Is that what we see
On YouTube ranting
Fixating word fire
Watching poets burn up
Soul fire, kin wraith
Warms us still

Write or be written
Burn brightly to make coal
Beds to help other
poets burn hot

Eventually we rise
The smoke Star bright night
Join cloud people and rain
No one can catch us
Flickering soul pulse
firesong bards crisping
Bright hot flash gone
We've warmed a generation
Participated in eternal spark
Burn on now daughters
Expand burst blossom
Involute mystery dark

Scooter 3\24\14

Ends at water's edge

Ends at Water’s Edge

flame seeks soul's timber 

licks blazing lips hers

seeks blast-furnace of turmoil mine

mingled light and heat sapper 

consumes free standing member

singes myrrh incensed she furs

resins labdanum smoke chased pine

agitate rampage fear lapper

accelerate caisson pull limber

sleazy limbo nylon a fire lure

fueled up to water’s edge our affinity line

tap-root scorched hollow taper capper.

Firewalk 1995

 

I’m on fire.

My body

steps in time.

I might not

have a mind.

Bipedal

march. The veils:

fire and fear.

Until now

I thought I’d

fall away—

burn or burst—

but as all

turns to thrust,

cries of birth

meet me first.

I’m thirsty.

[fire and air] brighid

                near imbolc, a fire festival

tonight, leave out the white flags for her blessing

ancient flight, firelight, moonlight cresting

Imunuri Prompt: Elemental - Conflagration

scribe an offering 
inspired by the element of fire, heat, conflagration

what blazes in you, what moves you QUICKLY, what transmutes, and what are you warming with your flame? what, if incinerated, would grow from your inferno's ashes? write conflagration.


Tags: conflagration, epic-earth, poem, <poet's moniker>

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Epic-Earth on Imunuri: An ongoing series of earth-related prompts as part of an Imunuri experiment to dwell repeatedly on a theme and its riffs, and/or the possible poetry challenge, bit by bit, of producing an epic or body of poems...

Image source: Firestorm, Mirror Plateau, 1988, National Park Service, Public Domain on Wikimedia Commons