Bottled – By Douglas C. Pugh
Published By Douglas C. Pugh • Feb 15th, 2010 • Category: PoetryOne word encompasses the fiery rage of hell
released in torrent invective, passion balled in knotted gouts
struggling to frame the blow before it lands
boundless, it has no vessel that contains
reason tears and shreds, a tornado incensed
with no sense of the red mist
through which it sees
yet green, shifted through envy and it’s mad gaze
it can cycle, a doppler shift of past and present
no thought to tomorrow save that
which it cannot bear
or the sly wiles of the jaundiced
skulking in shadows, no bravery here
just the stilettoes of cowardice
a deflection of self loathing
stabbing barbs at the prickle of life
and blue, the chill deep, saying nothing
only the distant grate of shells turned, fractured
in it’s depths, chewed and chewed again
in the dark places that nobody knows
it’s fire nothing but a long bellow echoing
far beneath the waves, never buried, never dead
and worst, never forgotten
and somewhere in this rainbow hue
a heady cocktail ranged in the bar
of my mind, bottled, fermented, distilled
stoppered and sealed, the genies trapped
is a label
‘In case of dANGER – DO NOT BREAK GLASS’
About the Author
Douglas C. Pugh
Douglas Pugh lives in Northern Ontario with a logical wife and an insane menagerie. He likes to believe that he fills the gap in the middle. Bleeding words onto a page help with his delusion. When he’s not writing, he’s probably painting or out riding his bike. And thinking about writing more.
The following lines of this poem have me returning to read them over and over again, I stare at them:
“a deflection of self loathing
“stabbing barbs at the prickle of life
“and blue, the chill deep, saying nothing”
Another astonishing poem of fantastic horrors in multiple, yet integrated, imagery by Douglas Pugh. Usually it’s horrors of imagined city life, but here it seems closer to a reflection on bad conscience along with fears of revenge, possibly the voice of the poem imagining all hint of threat seen in the world as connected with him and his conscience, no matter how far flung the threat might be, no matter how enormous and full the world beyond his obsession – as if life for others had not gone on beyond the voice’s own conscience.
A more than admirable poem.