Pyromania
Unsubtitled
It’s great fun, stacking the wood,
weaving the kindling through the gaps in the logs.
Striking the match is its own pleasure, the friction bursting the tiny stick
into flame. Sometimes you didn’t even wait to see if it caught,
leaving me smoldering in the dark with nothing but air and cold wood
to keep me company. And the other times:
Why kindle a fire you won’t can’t tend? Don’t you know that fire is dangerous?
Did you see the earth after I scorched it?
Why so many times? How can you like the building and abandon the burning?
The burning is the best part, tongues of light consuming the wood, giving heat,
effigies rising.
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
I’m known as Dena Brown to the revenuers and pollsters.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
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More stories from Harper Lewis and writers in Poets and other communities.
Standing While Falling
Quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche "He who wrestles long with monsters should beware lest he himself become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Man is not destroyed by suffering, but by the meaning he makes of it."
By LUCCIAN LAYTH3 days ago in Critique
Comments (3)
Fire as temptation and accusation at once, seductive to build, terrifying to leave untended. This piece makes the flame feel alive, watching us as much as we watch it.
I’m afraid of the destructive power of fire and would never manage to do controlled burning, even in an ashtray. Great poem, Harper.
I love bonfires and when the flames catch, you can see gods, devils and dragons there