How We Made Fire
I wonder how it first started,
as I sit trying to flick the sparks upwards
so they no longer dissipate
as the blade of the axe touches down
did man see fire, raining
as the meteors were braver back then?
did they collect lightning,
having learnt that angry gods gave gifts?
my blade strokes unknown metal.
I think of all the flints,
the sticks & bones they collected,
I think of burning flesh
did they chase the wildwood fires
to capture living embers,
to enslave flames for domestic use,
caged in crude lanterns?
when the pine logs whine & spit,
when the wind fans our flames to a holy rage,
when the turpentine trees explode,
when our houses are cremated
we never shed a tear for the ashes,
or say a prayer for the dying embers
____________
Writing the Sunrise
violet, you had once said,
was the colour of the sun
in the most beautiful sunset
you ever yet witnessed,
overlooking a beach
thousands of miles past
this morning, as I left you
above fields of powder-milk mist,
the sun was blood orange
in a violet mixing-bowl sky,
in an ocean trench of purples
where the clouds held secrets
in mauve shadows of their eyes,
& it was painfully in the now
I didn’t stop to try to photograph
the blush of the clouds’ undersides,
or the pastel smudges of pink
that reminded me of you
drawing fly algaric in a pre-dawn
moment of your inspiration
I remembered, in the witching hour,
wanting to part the ghosts of cloud,
to rearrange those seven sisters
with my cool fingertips raised up
as I prepared to crumble constellations,
&, as you smiled in the dark,
I could have sworn I tasted ultraviolet
Rusty Truck 