Tag Archives: fire

I did it for my babies

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I sobbed while I banged my head on the dock
I lit the fuse tick tock tick rock
With nowhere to go I ran amok
because I knew no one gave a fuck

and my children died inside the conflagration
while outside I died as a witness stationed
to watch this act as the ultimate martyr
from lover to mother to miserable failure

now my babies don’t suffer anymore don’t you see?
their loss was my hope for my babies three
their release from torment my relief and my grief
I their life giver corrupter and thief

I scratched at the doors where help is the word
I pleaded for help and not one cry was heard
I make no further excuses for this desperate crime
judge me oh judge me and I’ll do my time

but I urge you who judge to stop and reflect
on the festering harm of abuse and neglect
on how absence of care equals opportunity cost
from pitiful existence my babies were lost


Hades begets Persephone

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 She awoke with a raw sense of dread
 A cold sweat soaked the sheets of her bed
 The sounds that night were not nighttime’s she knew
 A hint of smoke contradicted the dew 
 
 Shadows danced on the bedroom wall
 Where dancing shadows should not be at all
 The normal still off white of the paint
 Was lively with movement and firelight feint 
 
 She fumbled with billowing robe and nightclothes
 Tying her robe up tight as she rose
 Into a world of self doubt and fright
 She stumbled out into the cold of the night 
 
 She touched the back of the door to sense any heat
 Realised she’d no shoes put on her feet
 Sidestepped and slipped into a pair of sandals
 As her hand reached out for the frightful handle 
 
 When she dared to look through the gap in the door
 Using light flickering lively onto the floor
 From her half awake hazy sleep deprived daze
 She wondered if the place was already ablaze 
 
 Further she pushed open the portal
 Considered precious life and  all that was mortal
 Within her tiny flat B number 144
 She wondered if she could take the fear anymore 
 
 And she listened alert for other clues
 Thought about the price of paying her dues
 She heard the crackle and pop of combusting wood
 Her only thought now to get out if she could  
 
 She peered out into a reddish early morning gloom
 To an apparently deserted yet eerie lounge room
 But there at the side a large shape sat in a chair
 Exuding an oppressive weight of despair 
 
 The wood fire aglow had strangely been lit
 It certainly was not her who lit it
 A monstrous head turned to look into her face
 An inhuman form by nature disgraced  
 
 He had discreetly followed her around town for weeks
 In peripheral vision never seen when he seeks
 Creating acute nervousness from endless teases 
 A cat playing with a mouse its tormenting pleases 
 
 She knew instantly her time had come
 It was not to be as life had begun
 No comfort from her mother’s caress
 No strength to be found on father’s chest 
 
 Hades stood to meet her towering ominously above
 Leering and smug antithesis of love
 She resigned herself to the monster’s arms
 Wishing after horror would come blessed dead calm

In this d’verse challenge https://dversepoets.com/2021/08/03/poetics-persephone/ Sarah asked us to take inspiration from the myth of the abduction of Persephone by Hades. I saw ancient (and not so ancient) patriarchal rituals and modern parallels as I read Sarah’s summation of the story.

The Smoke Filled Sky (a lament for my country)

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Testament to our past misdeeds

Confirmation of future trends

For victims, my heart bleeds

No politics justify these ends

 

The smoke filled sky blocks light and hope

Destruction and death follow

How will our burning country cope?

What hope is there for tomorrow?

 

Immediate danger on fire grounds

A fire season now six months long

Environmental disaster all around

We need more than just “stay strong!”

 

Adopt the fire advice “watch and act”

For this escalating climate emergency

Because if a nation ablaze isn’t enough fact

Our destiny is to burn again too blind to see

 

 

How to quell Dragon fire

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As liquescent a structure as ere had been born

Fluid in movement ancient evil forlorn

It rose from the surface as broken and torn

Through mirror like glaze the ragged head formed

 

Then took on the shape of mythological dread

The hunter and the scourge of the living and dead

Seeking blood and soul for a hunger ne’er fed

It rose every night from its hoard of a bed

 

The villages around at its mercy enslaved

To its will and its service when it sped from its cave

Deep within lake water cold as the grave

 

And it sought for its prey along tarns stoney shore

Cold hard rocks gave purchase to the legs at its fore

As snakelike behind it writhed serpentine lore

Dripping mucous dropped from the rank fetid maw

 

Scales of hard metal shed the pallid moonlight

Keen black eyed pupils pierced the night as if bright

Those who saw cringed at the terrible sight

 

Menacing and malignant beast’s cold beating heart

Razor like claws black knives of the dark

Terror inducing roar shaped the growl of blight’s bark

Spiked tail that it whipped left brutal spike’s mark

 

The villagers knew it would come just a matter of when

They planned and they schemed in their way of men

But against such a dragon who could they send?

When so many had tried and then failed again

 

One day came a stranger of the land of yore

So it seemed by his weapons and the clothes that he wore

Confidently speaking with the villagers he saw

Not intending to stay as he travelled some more

But the people saw a chance to hold him by law

And they plotted his detention by creating a score

As a bond so he’d fight at the dragon’s front door

 

A maiden they ‘suaded of rape she would cry

Of shame and dishonour and that he should die

They held him in prison for a year and a day

They said  they’d release him swore on their shades

If he’d fight the dragon and marry the maid

 

Before he would agree to do things their way

He thought and thought how the dragon he’d play

And a plan took some shape as he thought that he may

 

They fitted him with fine armour a new double edged sword

They released him to freedom as a man of his word

And he stood proud and strong in the sunlight en guarde

 

The road to the cave was hard wearing stone

The chill of the wind cut to the bone

He was cold and was tired as he advanced on beast’s throne

 

The dragon saw him come as many had before

It counted the notches three score and four

It drooled and it schemed as it watched from haunt’s core

 

The stranger he’d come from the land of the Goth

Where courage and valour were never enough

Shrewdness and cunning were part of his troth

His weary limbs clambered to the lake mountain loft

 

He spelled at the mouth of the ravager’s chamber

Took sustenance, slept and awoke with more vigour

For the maid who truly loved him gave magicked liquor

 

He advanced down the passage to scents of rot and despair

Knowing his fate awaited down there

Each step his last as he rounded each corner

Each shelter inadequate behind massive boulders

 

Fetid smoke clung to the walls and ceiling of each room

Grey light only to guide him through darkness and gloom

With the breathing of the dragon loud all to soon

His sense of foreboding filled the space as a tomb

 

Then the roof disappeared the walls out of sight

A gilded shape on the floor sparked as stars in the night

And the massiveness of the creature depicted such might

The stranger sang noble songs to himself to fend off his fright

 

Apparently sleeping he skirted the great shape

Hidden partially by his stealth and the grey of his cape

He sought out a soft spot near the neck or the nape

As he held out his sword and shielded behind plate

 

The dragon knew he was there as a dog knows a flea

Playing fearlessly with the stranger nonchalantly

Arrogant in its power of vast energy

To kill with a furnace quick violent deadly

 

The dragon’s eye was a slit tracking the moves of the stranger

The stranger was calming unaware of the danger

As he prowled and he sought with the skills of a ranger

The dragon plotted its move as for a babe in a manger

 

A flick of the tongue burnt much as acid

A drop of saliva turned all fresh meat rancid

The tip of its tail was as sharp as a lance head

It’s chances of murder it very much fancied

 

The stranger noted the eye movement below the eyelid

He realised under veil of sleep a wakeful dragon hid

And he thought of his plan to play the dragon with a bid

 

He called to the dragon. “I know you are awake you cunning thing

And I think I can beat you, of lake mountain I’ll be king

Because I have something you have not, a secret magic ring

The only way to use it is with the magic words I sing

 

Now the greedy dragon was curious and true to dragon lore

It  wanted answers fast it cut to the core

Because if there is one thing a dragon must have to adore

It is the thing it hasn’t got because a dragon always wants more

 

The dragon gave up its ruse of gentle breath and sleeping

It stirred its mighty body to a better position for peeping

It opened its emerald eye to seek the ring it should be keeping

And followed the agile stranger over dragon’s hoard leaping

 

The ring he said I hold with me has power to turn lead to gold

If you can sing the song of the ring I’ll bring it from its fold

And you will have riches beyond all the riches of times old

But in exchange for the ring I challenge you, your fire must go cold

 

Three questions you can ask me to learn the words to sing

If you learn the words I’ll give up the power of the ring

If you don’t you will give me what the people want to know

How to quell your fire until it’s cold as snow

 

The dragon thought on this and being arrogant and mighty

It took up the challenge knowing it’s  intelligence to be weighty

To beat a human would come easily and the ring it did so want

There was no fear of losing when it was effectively savant

 

Question 1 Where are the songs words to be found that I might read them?

Answer 1  They are unwritten in my memory is where I keep them

Question 2 What do they say that I might use them for myself?

Answer 2 They say that only I may use them or give them for another’s health

Question 3 When my health is so good, how may I learn the song please?

Answer 3 When you ask without threat and villager’s wishes you appease

 

The dragon considered pondered deep long and ready to refute

Then It came to a decision to make the whole discussion moot

Why not agree to these conditions accept riches share the wealth?

After all it had so much was tired of loneliness and stealth

Not to mention it still had home hearth and many years of health

 

I withdraw the threat of storming fire and death

If you share the rings secret I will quell my breath

If we can all manage this land without suffering for all

I will accept the people’s offer I answer yes  to their call

 

Th stranger sighed the deepest sigh ever heard from any man

As the weight of responsibility lifted and he raised his hand

Friend dragon unto you I make this oath.

We will share the wealth of our land from coast to coast

 

With that he turned to go to find his way back

Aware that the peace of the land was now a fact

A new purpose was in him with promise of a new life

Ahead lay a new community a new home a new wife

And he sang the song of the ring as he wearily trudged to the town

As each foot passed the other as each mile passed going down

 

“I sing the song of the power ring

For turning lead into gold

The ring that sings of powerful things

That only the truest can hold

For lead be lead and gold be gold

And none can change the two

Except the one who can answer the question of

How to share wealth away from the few?”