The Quintessence of Fire
Stephen Mead
Enter flame, its elusive petals.
They become real & you could drink them,
be lit with their hues.
Such nimbuses pulse, drawing air in,
luminescence wrapping round,
a vampirism kiln
sucking, swallowing, reeling
back out…
Such hunger
gives off a sulfurous aura.
Cobalt gas yawns, an unpredictable
breathing thing.
It lives as turbulence, truth.
Its blazing is nature, opposing
neutrality, glamour, rituals.
See it grazing, moving across lawns?
Bursting to eddy, the conflagration
seems sacred. To focus on its bowels
means discovering Pompeii, the burnt
ends, the ashes…
Falling, every tip drops
a climax, a kiss.
Next they head seaward,
having cleared the landscape.
Here regeneration’s bleed, wavelengths
of burners, their innermost eyes.
The evolution is fascinating, an enigma
to behold. Imagine it
separated from gaseousness,
thrown into cold space——
Fire, a sphere, that coin
twirling, twirling,
this side of it, a black hole,
this other…your door.
