Fire Drawn To A Bloom
by Joseph Armstead
the crash is electric,
burning invisibly
in an ocean of coolness
...majesty and fury...
...nature and physics...
and the scent of
burnt copper
on the howling wind
dances a tango
with the fragrance
from an autumn blossom
Awakened from her dark dreaming,
the Lady Fair draws a breath,
tasting the Real,
inhaling the detritus
of Time,
and gathers courage
to face the tempest.
an angel disguised
as a butterfly
alights on the bloom,
the stalk bounces,
bending from the ephemeral weight
...seeing, seeking...
...tasting, feeling...
and the storm fans
petal and wing
with a kiss of fire
She dances on the edges
of the lightning's
strike,
alive with the brutal ripping
of molecular chemistry,
and she sees deeper
into the world's dark heart
than ever she did before,
knowing,
this time,
that the white-hot lash
of a raging Heaven
holds no secrets
to her final destiny.
the dichotomy of nature intoxicates and strangles
the butterfly
and the flower
quake as one under skies
split by
the glint of Truth
in the brilliance
of God's eyes.
The Lady Fair
peers into the gloom
of the approaching maelstrom
awaiting her one good moment
in the glare of the bleeding sun...
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Fire Flower" by Ba-Mi, dreamstime_m_15616773.jpg
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And No One Can Know That You're Bleeding
by Joseph rmstead
It is hurt.
(imagery)
...the tarnished, golden halls of kings, tarts and dreams...
...a corridor to purpled midnight fading to black...
pain be not common -- a slow leak in a torn heart
It is a scent of nostalgia
and abandoned love letters,
a decaying bouquet
of murmuring flowers,
weeping secrets
into the cool, gurgling flow
of the brook of night,
shadowed water,
as nightingales war with crows,
each singing brittle music
heralding the death
of weary daylight,
the sounds
less heard than smelled,
a perfume
that casts a spell
of events
and emotions
that run too deeply
for mere melancholy
under gloom-dappled skin.
(sensation)
... palace intrigue: the upheaval of a sacred avarice...
... a lost child kicks a tin can down a secret road...
pain be not proud -- a storm of wounds that lingers
It is hurt.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Wounded Heart" by Sundikova (Liudmila Sundikova), dreamstime_m_5489869
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Covenant in Acid Shadow
by Joseph Armstead
The music of my voice is
unheard.
Listen.
We have all come to the Gathering,
here,
in the velvetness of aloneness,
today,
to speak of things we have lost,
And of the friends
we continue to miss,
still unheard.
Listen.
The danger in this
is its promise
of addiction.
There are no safe havens.
No future born from past glories.
No hearth, no home,
no sanctuary.
No guarantee of Heaven.
I've a confession to make
and the nightmare in it
is the soundless symphony
streaming from my lips,
my voice,
unheard,
dreamtime betrayed,
A treachery of adulthood
where we pray to the great Unmaker
And wait, happily, for the fury
of the coming storm.
Listen...
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Silhouettes and Shadows of People" by Emersont (Terrance Emerson), dreamstime_m_16832042
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Dissembled Vision
By Joseph Armstead
So I saw something out the corner of my
reddened and weary eye,
something moving with fluid,
serpentine
stealth
while, in the cluttered living room,
by the flickering light projected from my
flatscreen LED television,
a politician dolefully discussed
the latest details of the budgetary downturn,
blubbery lips caressing each syllable
in his grim divinations
and
all his words the music of innuendo
as he played the Blame Game,
endorsing the faux-ideas recycled
from a talking head politico from his own party
some twenty-five years past,
that thing
hallucination ... shadow ... apparition ... revenant...
that ghost I saw dancing at the edges
of my blurred vision,
played with the dollar sign emblem
on its gaudy gold jewelry,
hip hop gauche,
a sight gag from a joke reel
in a B-grade movie
no one ever filmed.
I blinked and an alternate
Reality
fell in crumbled
pieces
from out my eye.
Ain't that the way? You always have problems.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Optical Art Eyes Fractal" by Cvadrat, dreamstime_m_5365885.jpg
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Substance of Thunder
by Joseph Armstead
the voice, thunderous, echoes in the spaces between the clouds,
lashing like a whip of lightning through the open air,
ripping dream from the dreamer,
piercing the fragile veil of expectancy
Sequence acquisition, Countdown begins, initiate...
super-particles caught on the coherent string
of a randerized web suspended in ultra-symmetric solution
dissolve
falling prey
to the decomposition
of gravimetric membranes
in assymetric chronological orbit
6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- Echo
Launch:
memories of the last moment of tactile sensation,
transmission of subconscious intimacy
set to fading music, phantom rhythms spiralling
out
of
control
while the tears burn
wet highways down the map of her face
the voice, like the blast of a canon,
like the passing of celestial Judgment,
rockets across an arid desert
of endless guilt,
demanding your attention,
naming your sin,
calling you,
stripping you naked,
and you tremble in shame.
Fatal error. Sequence abort. System failure.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock, "Man Ego Accuse Concept" by Drx (darkonovakovic), dreamstime_m_2376696.jpg
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