a small essence (and an unusual phenomenon)

everyone who saw agreed as he did himself it was an unusual phenomenon he had looked into the sun to watch light dancing had swum in the waters of a shimmer in the desert but this time when he cut himself he bled small droplets of red flame that seemed almost to splash and spread …

among us

he wore his hat brim low to keep his face withdrawn from the light hidden under a shadow didn’t say much in a voice that sounded cracked and dry more a shape than a man drawing dark around him like a cloak filled with nothing no he didn’t say much but if you ever glimpsed …

bird alight

I saw the bird rise into the sky leaned back to watch it fly saw it burn broken things broken things fall as though flung away from the heart before performing an arc the far half of a parabola like the light ash that rises from a backyard fire like feathers suddenly independent dancing with …

first touch

he waited for the sun to rise standing faced to the east un moving he watched for the shape of light a slow encroachment across the hills hueing the black into a lighter shade a grey the gold of the clouds was the sun surely rising he reached … he passed the point where he …

rake the coals

he finds a ruby stone still glowing clear the ash yesterday let the air touch today let the flame be tomorrow pink wood from a mountain forest red wood from the flood plains yellow wood that fell by the way rake the coals find the jewels of fire opal the precious stones hidden in ash …

medium

he thought deeply examined familiarized he was a writer a poet and he thought deeply before taking up his pen he knew what he wished to write for a clear idea had formed within his mind and it was this this thought that needed to be expressed documented as his pen touched onto the paper …

imagine no history

it was the work of an instant no more imagination has no history imagination is a thing a time a place someone who wasn’t there is now here I saw it so it is must be ~ Poem #374 from a series of poems drawn from the imagination and collected as: a Bachelard reverie. Back to …

bird of fire

phoenix am I somehow I stand before you you know I know this is an impossible truth I have died yet here I am alive reborn renewed or maybe maybe I am only resurrected who can tell? not I this air tastes of sweet things phoenix I am burned in my own fire flames of …

he dreams the spoken flame

when the wind speaks with tongues of fire I will fly like a bird of flame close my eyes feel myself rising lifted when the wind is fire the bird will fly ~ Poem #337 from a series of poems drawn from the imagination and collected as: a Bachelard reverie. Back to Bachelard and me – …

now the remembrance of flame

as a child it had been apparent that he enjoyed play with matches paper small twigs at first there had been concern but no flames ever seemed to escape him always they were extinguished as though they had never been while he seemed … brighter happier after he had lit and burned only now so …