Imagery of Fire & Flame

I've been thinking about how often the imagery of fire and flame appears in my writing as well as my imagination and thoughts...I wouldn't say that I use it more than anything else, but quite often, especially when writing somewhat erotic pieces. It's not unusual, I suppose, but I come from a very - let's just say - HEATED history and still, to this day, smell fire or feel heat when there isn't anything obvious happening or showing. When I was little I would get up in the night searching for fires quite often and that still happens occasionally because I really do smell it. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and this may explain some of it.

I like to sit and watch flames dance, just sit in the quiet watching in a somewhat meditative state. I do this with candles and fireplaces and rarely (these days) bon fires. It can be used as a door into deeper parts of myself or connect me to the Universe so I can receive messages. It may be my so-called 'lack' of fire in my chart (I have to laugh about that though, as I can be very fiery - I do truly count my Aries DSC and my first house planets), or it may be my history. Perhaps a combination of things...but what I am dancing around is my quest to understand why I so often use fire in erotic works. The passion? The feeling of being consumed? Dying such a glorious 'death'...or the desire to be so intensely involved with a special someone that it feels as if we are so hot for one another that we ARE on fire?

Yes, I know, I can be a bit of a dreamer but I do have intense needs and desires. Yet I am a realist enough to understand that no one can actually set the sheets on fire (or can they? lol)...nor would I truly want to catch fire (again) but it is a sensual, consuming image and I like it.

LOL...this is how my mind works, in twists and turns until I come to the conclusion. All that jabber lead me back to a simple "sensual, consuming image and I like it." There's the answer.

So...I have a new poem up called Falling Away in Ashes with, yes, fire and flames and burning consumption...

Cool misty mornings and fog on the rocks in the evening

I am in a very soft and sensual mood...a poetic mood but not so much with a need to write it but rather to have it written for me or read to me. Something to touch me so deeply that I will catch my breath and daydream for hours. I am a blessed woman. I am so very loved and even in the moments I forget, my dear friends are there hiding in the shadows, just waiting for a moment to give me more love. And how I love them too, oh so much.

Life can be rough...it isn't always easy to be a starving artist (or starving astrologer), but in my quiet moments I know I how blessed I am in so many ways, even if I have yet to maintain a solid material base, lol.

Today is one of my dearest and oldest (wow, 25 years we've known one another!) friend's birthday and he took his time to give me this tidbit of poetic affection (after telling me how FL does not suit me): your vibe is totally cool misty mornings and fog on the rocks in the evening

I do not know why but I truly love that description of myself...I see how accurate it is...something wild, uncontrollable, permeating, and yet soft all at once. Even the fog on rocks fits well...underneath my soft, yielding, inherently loving self is a streak of solid and immovable, steadfast will - a rock core.

I am listening to Carli Bruni. I absolutely adore her voice. Right now it is "Le Ciel Dans une Chambre (Il Cielo in Una Stanza)."

When I am in such a mood I read poetry...not just 'famous' poets, but also poets like myself, those who write because they need to or want to. Actually, that is pretty much all poets, even the ones who eventually become well known (generally after they are dead!). So tonight I have been reading the works of others on Author's den and found this absolute gem, which I hope you will enjoy too.


Her Middle Name is Music
by Gene Williamson
Friday, June 05, 2009
　
I like the rhythm in her walk,
I like the tempo in her talk,
the crescendo when she kisses me.
She’s a living, loving melody,
a Grand ‘Ol Opry jamboree.
Her middle name is music.

She’s an operatic aria,
a philharmonic orchestra,
an anatomic symphony,
a rhapsody at Carnegie.

I like her syncopated hips,
the heart-shaped music on her lips,
Read the rest here!

Ahhh...

I'm going to go sink further into Bruni's voice now.

Sweet love,

Dena

God(dess) Bless the USA - The American Flag

From the Lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee, across the plains of Texas, from Sea to shining Sea, from Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA....

'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God Bless the USA!

Happy 233rd Birthday, America!

The American Flag

When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air
She tore the azure robe of night
And set the stars of glory there!

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;

Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand,
The symbol of her chosen land.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly
The sign of hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone
And the long line comes gleaming on.

Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;

And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heaven in wild wreaths the battle-shroud
And gory sabers rise and fall,
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;

Then shall thy meteor-glances glow,
And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death. careening on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,

And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee.
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
When Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!"

Joseph Rodman Drake
1795–1820