Of the coming flood.

Of the coming flood.

If it were but a storm cloud, I might have survived it.
It is the quaking of the entrails that says it isn't so.
The thunderheads were building far longer than I'd
Thought to recognize; I tell a lie, than I would admit.
It is raining here now though, with a churning fog.
These clouds have eyes, and they scan for meat.
I wonder if I'll be so cold when I am snatched away.
It could too be a blessed mercy, turning to icy stone.
Was that the thunder?  If you count these seconds
You could tell me how long I have before I am done.
I wonder if it will be an instant; one brilliant flash...
Or agonizing plummet where I can feel every inch.
Onward lightning, I dare, strike me down in brilliance.
I want to savour the crackle of charring flesh on bone.
I'll just lie still awhile, shall I, as all my thoughts writhe.
I willn't bother with 'I told you so' and nor should you.
I feel the torrent now, so I must shield my face awhile.
The sky is darkness and lightning has turned; red as blood.
When I can drink no more of it, you'll stir the pot for me
So I see your face lastly as the tides pull me down below.

-phoenix
9.13.2014

Into the Wake of Wonder

Into the Wake of Wonder

It was a fragment I had thought; to keep the candle burning.
Like an afterthought to a whisper withered in a winter wind.
What was a drop of rain, was simply heralding the tsunami;
Sink or swim willed no longer unto choice, but to perchance.
Oh harbinger of all or nothing, won't you lend me your smile.
Forgive me my petrification, I wish to wander to my wonder,
But to wander toward the deep would be to slip and fall.
I wasn't built on easy footing, but needs to feel I know my fill.
A mockery of innocence belied by the very fabric of cognition.
Here there be, what?  Wraiths or monsters?  If only it were so.
I had all but birthed a headless hydra to wreak havoc here.
Why not craft him fresh teeth?  The better to swallow me whole.
Why such easy betrayal by my nature, I know the difference.
I grow wearily unnerved, bailing back the flood with but a thimble.
My skeletons and corpses sworn not to mingle, only mangle,
Such skillful precision in the face of denouncing my own name.
Intolerable attempts at speculation; met only with a slight of hand.
Its your slight of tongue, even silent bares me treasures, dooming.
It is as it was meant for me; I fear further splinters of my essence.
It should be my mortal sin, if to spare them from the likes of this.
And would do well in not squandering on her; kindnesses.
In wearing away the ghosts you'll unearth her creature guilts.
Look not  upon medusa's serpents' clings to shallowed learning.
T'would be for wretched, brittle hearts' salvation, were I to gild.
And of the unsuspected whimpers, I beg deafening silences.
A thousand fickle passions, and a thousand shards of glass.
Decry my pardon, and lead me not toward your salvations,
Should be the death of me, if not the straw to break my back.

-phoenix
9.11.2014

Inevitability

Inevitability

Oh how you terrify me, even in my exhilaration...
What truths could I utter that wouldn't be a danger to me?
Why here and now when I was comforted in my corner?
Fickle fate, please cut this thread and save my demons.
Some would think two hearts could be a kindness, ha!
Were I to play with fire, I know of burning at both ends.
I've traversed the wheel anew, and a new demon face
Has met me here, and met fresh cuts to bleed infinitely.
Does it have to hurt my sanctity so effortlessly, dear?
The rhetoric of my wretched physicality, be still? No.
There is no stranger, only the sadness of its ebbing smile.
I should have known, for its known me time and time over.
I long for the longing of its pacifying warmth, but imaginary.
Even when the words refuse to fail me, I know their failure.
The translucence of my character is what stakes me taught.
The freedoms I afford the heart, stealing miles over inches
And holding vigil as I stumble into daylight clasping my face.
It floods when I do not call its name, maniacally laughing.
It feasts upon my choking anguish when it chooses.
I am but the messenger; starving and perspiring silently
As the havoc swarms to wrack me to my fevered core.
I must awaken from this nightmarish impossibility, please.
The truth of it is more than I dare to diminish in artifice,
But this reality only bares with it the eulogy of all before.
Its a tumour in the form of a tremor, claiming false benignity.
This too, shall pass and I will pass round and round again.
Too many sweets have gone to sour on the vine, I fear.
What of the devastations; the yearnings, and misgivings?
Lain by restlessly, then totality, will live trailing in my wake.

-phoenix
9.8.2014

A monument for fools.

A monument for fools.

What have I stumbled upon, here in the darkness?
As I am nearing the end of this lingering journey
I am narrowly torn between this drawing exhaustion,
And my terrifying infant fascination for all of these...
Those which could and would, were I to but surrender.
There lies that constant boiling current; just below me.
But for a promise, these gates could be poured over.
These breakers could have been left to fall where they might.
What churning ambivalence has so sought to openly steal;
Might also be willingly parted, were questions e'er refrained.
I hear it; hear them; hear you all, if only once weren't enough.
To love and despise; to overjoy and devastate; rage, revere...
The cost, far higher than hundred lives could afford me.
Yet, idle hands continue feeble heart's attempts to pay.
Fools who learn not, continue suffering first person fools.
Perhaps worse still; to suffer to them, for them willingly.
I do not want this, yet I crave its merciless interruption.
I want to hold, to clutch it, even while I must be held at bay.
I would risk its lingered poison, even while it breathes my life.
It bleeds lunacy and I drink, knowing that it tames the tides.
Dangling pearls of salvation steeped in blood and tears.
Fleeting fancies assumed and become the poisons I'm to be.
Temporary appointments; then so eager and easily replaced.
Onward wheel of destiny and dissension, or alone I shall
Surrender to the gears for which I spend my meager steam.
I know a purpose lives beyond these stacking walls, even whilst
The losing battles are the cornerstones I'm meant to reap.

-phoenix
9.8.2014

More than Just Wide Open

More than Just Wide Open

You all see those shackles round your ankles;
you stare at them
with dull recollection in your eyes
but no more than that.
NO more than a mild glimmer
of that which you clearly should have been.

The rusty iron of it continues waiting;
weighting,
until your feet are deeply rooted in soil,
while they
aim to wallow in their spoils of oil and ire.

They bind tighter; the wheel of the rack,
to which they strap you.
constricting; suffocating of souls.
Where once was desperation,
lives only acquiescence.
Where once you all stood your ground,
it's now sold.

Now only will they trudge along,
dragging chains of oppression,
bought and paid for in acceptance of
the fists that rule.
These meek; maintaining silence.
Whilst facing plastic columns
steeped only in their blood.
What you're saying: this is the history you long for.
Just one more story destined
not ever to be told.

-phoenix

10-17-2010
©2010, saerenphoenix

Fair in Love and War?

Fair in Love and War?

I wasn’t really watching when it happened,
the backdrop of the world, dropped back
and to these two threads I say, or would have said;
were I to have realized when I had a chance…?
Alas, my thoughts have betrayed me…for what?
These two hearts have beat within my chest.
When one grows stronger, the other wants
and cannot relinquish the wheel to its other,
then, grows stronger too, so as to retaliate.
Why must these arms remain together?
Whence one would reach out to the east,
its brother cries, onward, onward, shall
I stay my course I’ve chosen in the west.
Yet, I have dreamed of alternative realities;
ones of which both frighten, and exhilarate.
What if the east had won the battle, hmm?
What would I see beyond this window? I…
I mustn’t ask these things; nor will I suffer
losing touch with my spark, my only sanity.
Fate drove me to this, and while she is so,
this cruel, unruly mistress, she has summoned;
forged this great divide within my aching breast.
There is a lesson, a purpose, if only I would see.
To what end? My very breath is my enemy!!
What of my warring countries, distant satellites,
these beacons holding wholly different dreams?
I was never at the centre, I see that now. Yet;
with that truth, I am but shred entirely in two.
Beneath this toughened skin, there is not one
of two halves, but two of self; I am doomed.
Such an epiphany and such dawning guilt;
and acquiescence…for to see no chance, no hope,
and no glimmer of true satisfaction left for we.

---phoenix--- April 25, 2009

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2009
(Please contact the author with questions.)

When Dylan Met Chelsea

When Dylan met Chelsea

How you must have loved her, spending
those last of your shadow-casted days in
her threatening embrace, sweet nectar
not withstanding as you lie there spilling
all your secrets in the years forward you
would miss, as you miss her all the same.

Little did you know, as little as she would
know then of the many, many lovers who
would fall down at her feet, be cast out.
What gifts, to you she offered and would
you accept in your graceful manner to let
your soul breath freely for mere seconds.

Sorrowed curtain secludes you away from
mindful eyes of strangers until no further
eyes your eye would again meet. Your pain
imprinted livelihood stringing letter after
letter onto pages you would never dream to
realize; as only she might have gifted.

Was her embrace so intricately binding?
I think you would not have left even if you
had seen one glimpse of the domination
you would deny to have existence by mere
words, striking words but fraught with fear.
I could have adored you if to save you this.

Death would have you whether my heart
beats or does not and without you I feel a
loss I may still have felt if you had survived.
Oh sorrow at your passing, if only I could
have spoken, to hear you potent voice, to
love you from afar, had she not yet come.

---phoenix
6/7-14/08

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008
(Please contact the author with questions.)

The Pain of Two; for One

The Pain of Two; for One

Let these two bodies become separate
for there is a cancer invading both unless
these rocky rivers are dammed up.
I dangled this fisher’s hook in the hopes
that one would come to aid the other, only
now I realise, blind eyes were best.
Had I not called out to this one for the
sake of that other, these two might have
been at an advantage; existence tranquil.
Failure becomes me as I hang my head
and soak up the shame of a hundred
broken hearts within my own.
This dark dweller set up his camp and
that other should have been expectant
of such, this ongoing lot of pain.
I should not have called out in the dark
when I knew he would come and so too
would I sink his ship with ours.
What have I done, why did I search for
him to save the one? I know and yet
I also know not, and regret.
Now I must turn lose such a prize catch,
set sail that one so he might be saved,
yet pain for both I fear in this.
I must sever this knot in two, and give
one of these ones a fighting chance of
happiness, devastation be it.

---phoenix
6/9/2008

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008
(Please contact the author with questions.)

Squandered Preservation

Squandered Preservation

The darker side of passion;
lying dormant like a tumour,
waiting like a ticking bomb,
on the wheel of life and love.
Wandering like blinded infants
you move through the darkness;
hands out to catch you
should you stumble and fall.
A pit of teeth, a wall of daggers,
through the quicksand you trudge ever on.
Pinholes; gashes; leaches of treachery...
and you feel upon your face,
your hands, your heart each tiny scar.
Like must, absolutely, speak to like.
You know this even while in doubt
of your likeness residing in the veil.
Onward you march, single file existence
until you finally fall into the
crisp, cool light of your true, complete being.
You recognise these maps
carved out in stone and bone, in tears
like mirrored souls cast out
with only a thin strand to guide you
back home to the rest of this.
Now you are complete!
Lovely heaven, lovely perfection; fulfilled?
The searching over, the fear abated,
that loneliness and darkness---lost at sea.
All the wounds have closed, that be.
But, the blade shifts end over end as
one becomes the other and with
the other one and one; one shall be.
Cruelty beyond cruelty waits unseen.
Binary stars, brother of flesh and bone,
sewn swiftly and surely into tapestry.
Paintings fade, clay cracks, threads unravel
inevitably the dark will swallow one half
or the other of the whole...and what then?
No hand to hold, no heart to enfold, silence...
the body fails and the soul will set sail
into the void of the next world and leave
it’s other in the void again of this...
so to what end is the searching darkness
at the outset truly conceived?

---phoenix
6/6/2008

[I do not know when I originally penned this particular work but consider this the new revised edition]

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008
(Please contact the author with questions.)

That Other

That Other

How is it that we share these tiny threads
between us like miniature brush strokes
on a microscopic canvas of particle grains;
yet share nothing of the definition there?
I can see these traces in all the outlines of
your face, as if we were jointly moulded;
though all similarity is fleeting once I have
peered beyond this membrane into your
eyes, into that soft meat of your internal.
Would be connection broken, lying in ruins.

I contemplated once to keep you from harm
in my embrace, and you would stand by and
recognize my comfort, and fear would abate.
So tiny you were, like a solitary model soldier
standing at attention, continuously in thought,
eternally considering what approaches you’d
take within any endeavour, so brilliant, alert,
you would have this world in your tiny palm.
Now, discoloured visions of your feint glories.
I’d dreamt so much for you, now insignificant.

A charlatan had notions to pilfer your hide to

his own malevolent campaign whimsy, and I

alone appear to experience its wretchedness.

What ever became of the boy who once lived

inside that body? Him who’s avid fascination

was an embodiment of all who dared dream?

Is there no salvation from the despondency he

came to suffer while his guise was stolen away?

I fear now as his semblance was mangled; alas,

that shining beacon contained, has so followed.

---phoenix

6/1/2008

any copying/reproduction/distribution of this writing, in whole or in part, without express permission from the author is strictly prohibited. ©SaerenPhoenix 2008

(Please contact the author with questions.)