Another word for dying
11.7.2014

We are freezing.
A backwards combustion,
like burning in reverse.

Molecules decelerating
till water swells our cells
to the point of rupture,
and our fingers look
dipped in ink
and smears dark poppies
across our skin.

I want to dig nails into
your deadened flesh,
twist the crystals from your hair,
bite the blue from your lips
until both our faces are smeared
red and hot but we are awake
and we are alive.

We will breathe warmth back
into our bodies somehow.
Will fight the tempting slumber
offered by ice and darkness,
because we know sleep is just
another word for dying.

Stars Fall

2.25.2015

This is what happens when stars fall.
They light the way to where
We all have bodies in the woods.
Those dark, sunken plots of soil
Where we fear to walk.

We all have those dark rooms
In empty houses.
That are always cool and wet
With soft buckling floors.

The fires are long put out.
The walls chalky with charcoal
Where the flames arched it's back
And flexed it's claws
Leaving them soft
And crumbling like sugar
And feed the yielding moss.

But you keep coming back
To unearth your skeletons in the yard
And assure they're still buried.

Cease
2.17.2014

There's something to be said for decay.
For the way stars collapse in on themselves
like nesting dolls.

The same way hyacinths resolutely bloom,
their stalks bowing beneath the weight of flowers
and decay,
the sweetness of rot mingling with humid evening.

There's a steadfastness in entropy.
Like how you may not know if the sun
will rise tomorrow, but once it does
it is sure to set again.

This pretentious poem is based on principles of Alchemy, at the bottom there's a really quick and dirty crash course in basic Alchemy.

Coniunctio

5.20.2014

Even in the shade

we are burning.

The sun paints the sky

white with heat and

sets fire to the grasslands

till the plains are

filled with flame

that bakes the clay of the earth.

Our blood boils

in our embraced bodies.

Our hearts cook in our chests

as if we are crucibles.

We are reduced to

our most basic parts.

Refined by our many deaths.

Until our mingled ash

is exalted by the rain.

Alchemic terms alluded to:

Calcinatio: Oxidization, ashing of the metals. The spirit must suffer several deaths before it can change.

Coniunctio: The uniting, joining together. This can take place in the most intense heat.

Exaltatio: Another raising of the essences, often by adding water.

These are only 3 of the 11 steps of the divine genesis of the Philosopher's Stone, a perfect distillation of the elements. It must pass through 4 states of being divided into the blackening, whitening, yellowing, or reddening which corresponds to the four elements of earth, air, water and fire as well as the qualities of cold, hot, moist, and dry. This is an attempt to unify heaven and earth. Artistotle elaborated on Pythagoras' framework by proposing that this would result in a fifth element, the quintessence that would yield Gold, both physical and metaphorical, that was to them the most perfect metal.