Flame

I could stare at flickering flames all night

when I should be wandering in my dreams

I could gaze at a candle as it dances bright

but the minutes fly and so must I, it seems

Flames have a strange power to captivate

despite their cruel destructive capabilities 

The heat and light they furiously radiate

holds the promise to harm, or put at ease

Flames, consuming all, voraciously to eat 

everything that falls within their hungry path 

Fire that immolates with unforgiving heat 

and razes all to ashes with its fiery wrath

Flames that warm and thaw the harshest cold 

or offer radiant energy to cleanse the soul 

Eternal flame saluting all the brave and bold 

I could forever gaze upon your healing glow

Steve Wheeler © 6 September, 2021

Image source: Marco Verch

I burn my candle at both ends

I burn my candle at both ends. 

This is not what I 

would choose to do, 

but in its own way 

perhaps it chooses me.

To put my mind at rest 

is not a natural thing for me to do.

My body rests but my mind 

rages on, plagued and plucked at 

by vivid imagery and thoughts, 

dichotomies and similes, 

comparisons and homilies, 

fast flowing lists of trivia 

and entire vast coastal plains 

of raw poetry.

Tell me this, 

what would you rather 

have me be; a mind that sleeps 

and vegetates, or a mind that 

continues to create, to mould, 

to cogitate on worlds 

imagined and unreal?

Many questions hover 

here inside these restless, 

ranging hemispheres. 

Whether the enamelled nails 

adorning hands, or 

iron nails that scar them? 

Is there intelligent life 

on this blue planet, and if so 

then where may it be found? 

How can you tell one politician 

from the next, except by 

the colour of their lies?

Yes, I burn the candle at both ends. 

And yes, the wick has finite qualities. 

I may not last another night, 

I may be found at the foot 

of someone else’s bed.

You may yet discover me 

abandoned in some foreign wasteland.

I will not burn forever, and who knows 

where and when my two flames meet? 

But when they do, oh what 

glorious conflagration they will make!

Steve Wheeler © 4 September, 2021

image source: Patrick Feller