Tongues of deception.

Tongues of deception

Romantic scribbles by countless poets

recall faces voids of cheer

turned toward fires

presenting free concerts, its melodrama

cast with tongues of dancing flame.

Despondent eyes see

animated in the choreography

visions of lost love or love yet to come.

Each seek the promise of comfort in its glow.

Each is deceived.

Deception.

For eons your name has been ‘snake’.

Disguised in the inferno’s red/yellow/white hues,

each flickering tongue of flame

is forked in mimicry.

Is a fire warming? Yes. Comforting? On occasion.

But within is duplicity, within also lies

destruction, terror, death.

Annihilation and ravishment lurk

locked within smouldering embers.

Lurking, waiting for a chance to send out

daughter cinders like so many happy thoughts.

Each one hunting a host to feed it, nurture it,

to bring it to bud and bloom.

A white-hot bird of paradise.

Melancholic souls, this writer understands.

Let the fires of barren passions die.

Cast the spent grey ash and it’s powdered misery

far from you.

Gather fresh kindling.

Wendy Seddon © 3rd July 2013                  30 lines