ROSE-FIRE RAVE

By Chad Griffiths

Ocean lips

Kiss and tell

Blush, rave the close of day -

English thistles inspire my arterial circuitry,

Dead roses blossom out the veins of pale marble wrists,

Full bloom in yesterday’s Spring, familiar taste of

Candy-cane limbs;

Caught into wired shock, they

Bleed into the sand with the

Smoke-stained teeth I cut on

Neon dreams and ethereal ecstasy;

Spectral petrichor rolling into the stars of

Your hair, the salt of the earth

Lost out at sea, haunting the waters:

Folie Lunaire; Le Feu a

Funereal funeral pyre, lighting up a

Warm night in November, thrumming

Thunder under a dry absence of rain - yet

It was here we reigned;

You danced ritual rights

On the blackest of beaches,

Burnt driftwood spells, and cast

River-song incantations

Extorted souls drowned deep, lost while

Snake oil perfumes my witches’ trail,

Young Hansel the heroin addict with

Bleached blood mixing sour bones, said:

Here is your colour, my love

I’ve brought you roses

Set aflame in vermilion shades -

The sand at your feet forgot it was a drought,

Whilst skin froze to snow, and icicles formed

In the serpentine ink trailing down Tudor cheeks;

Zealous shadows set the Sun, smothered the

Surreal as it rose in reverse before the end and

Turned to ash and mercy in Heaven’s throat;

Dust and death, datura,

Lost in the hazel wind delirium, here and now I

Come to terms with distance:

The desert rave of day is short and ever long out of haze

#darkpoetsclub