Fire

I wrote this poem in a multiple-line verse based on the Fibonacci sequence so that the number of syllables in each line equals the total number of syllables in the preceding two lines.

FIRE

I,

fly,

and burn.

A bullet

lodged inside my heart,

each tear falls, a tropical rain.

I turned away, becoming what you’ll never know: alive.

You

are

fire.

I changed,

like you never knew,

so full of life, so full of hate.

All the world’s face shifted�"buzzing, a fly to butterfly,

leaving my chrysalis behind, emerging, winged, alone.

And you�"

it’s like you

never had wings, you feel

dead, rooted, still. I loved you once

like a traveler newly free from the horrors of our shared history.

Yet love's heart awakens in a meadow, echoing the harpsichord of life.

I see

the dead

playing cards,

nymphs and ghosts placing bets,

their laughter like the art of the fugue,

ancient chromatics spinning round their lost melody.

Far,

far

beyond sight,

the stars remember

forgotten rites, our hidden vows,

flames flickering in truths we buried nameless.

Memory,

even memory,

must learn to fade�"

each shadow a petal fallen,

each prayer unspoken, turning to silence.

In

that

silence,

I dissolve

like smoke unwinding

in skies that softly, slowly turn.

I left

behind

the self I knew,

that tender, hurt heart,

dying in your ashes, your light.

We

were

once

a world,

dancing beneath skin,

our fevered, pulsing origin.

Through

the

dark,

through fire,

we raged, a mercy,

breath and blood rising into wings,

ascending from ashes, life forged in death's release.

Now,

I

cast off

what remains,

the trembling, fragile notes,

and the past like a shed chrysalis.

Where

I

once

lingered,

now whispers lift me

upon the winds of who I’ve become.

Yet you

stand,

rooted,

a cinder buried,

the flame you were, lost, hidden deep,

while I, a memory’s ghost, move, winged, within the light.

So let

this

end,

as all things must�"

in dust, in fading light.

Yet in some far sky, an ember still glows:

one spark of all we used to know, glimmering in the shadows.

I fly,

I

vanish,

still in flight,

while you remain below,

rooted beneath a quiet night.

:: 11.08.2024 ::

Reviews

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

expressive, soulful, and tender. it is a deeply moving poem. but the line breaks that create these triangular-shaped stanzas give this text another dimension. it makes the reader stutter before unleashing the more substantive lines. it's as if i, the reader, is having a hard time saying all these things. that is incredibly smart. it is a bold poem with heart as well as brains.

[E.P. Robles]

Yes. yes. Only for the brave! :) Bravo!

[E.P. Robles]

The Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on