Thread: November Prize Challenge - "Fire"

Every few months WF is giving an additional prize to the challenge winner. As well as the Laureate title and the free month FoWF subscription, The winner of this months challenge will receive a $25.00 Amazon voucher. Please read the challenge posting guidelines because it's never pleasant to have to disqualify entries.

Martin, the winner of the last challenge, has suggested "Fire" as the prompt for this month. As usual, entrants are free to offer their own interpretation of the theme.

Please post entries in this thread.

No comments, please. If you have anything to say about the challenge then please use the Bards' Bistro.

The closing date for this challenge will be 3rd December..

Ephemeral Fours



water alludes
fresh and subdued
droplets of cute
plural of pure
rain and deluge
hear them applaud!!
life has awoke
to browse over lakes
the splendours of peaks
naturally quaint
blushes in crush
to icelet of slush
and pours out to sea

earthen emerge
tolkien and grace
ragged in strength
gravitas slides
reckons to stay
solemly clay,
reddish in tone
yellows of browns
scatter the lands,
havens and drape
ringlets of greens,
fields of the leaves
the makeup of scenes

heavenly murr
sailor is air
tingles the spheres
dotted in points,
evasive it weighs
sweeps up the senses
as high as the Everest,
currents of scents
ripple in waves,
ribbons of breeze
pungently float
the witdth of the reasons
the egde of the seasons
above and beyond


fire aloof
heavens above!!
volcanos errupted
avid and hot
lashes in cinder
redder in kinder
brasher then rough
leader of summet
forcefully crude,
earthly assembled
traverses the cult
that fire's a first
naturally nought!!
musn't grumble,
fierce as a burn
lit under siege
declension of cold
reverses the told,
cooling the cretes
mountains and wheats
pleeting beneath
errutpives of heats
dormant and slopped
a clash of a flash.
fadden, appeased.

Song of Snow Child

I was born into snow
coming from the cold womb of afterbirth
smelling of some rotten venison
killed in winter.

Father’s hands
red with blood and gripping tight
my precious legs
spanked to know
if I had made it from my weak mother’s womb
alive.

And this cry,
uttered from a thin baby’s frame,
born to malnourishment,
fighting to breathe,
bore in me a fire
centered in the calloused skin
slapping my behind.

When I was fourteen
under the scrutinous eyes of father,
far from snow and mountain around it,
I was shoved by a boy of height
greater than my own.

I turned,
bleary eyed, to father
who had turned,
clear eyed,
away.

Taking my fists
I pounded the boy
until he was like a tree,
having been chopped
burned
and torn to its base,
before the hands of father
guided me from the punishing hands
of school life.

Again,
at the age of twenty-two,
father’s hands smoothed by cancer
treatment,
I felt the sting of an empty pocket,
lacking a meaningful wallet,
sentencing that life,
which had always brought a fire to mine,
slipping out solid windows
into frosty cold winds.

And oh, such a rage!
Such a foolish, boyish rage.

I did take my gun to the mountains,
checking to see if it worked,
as it had had to twenty two years ago,
the night of my birth
to keep my wicken mother
from sacrificing my newborn life
with her own.

If only father were here to tell why,
this gun,
did rob my mother’s life.

Orphan of the snow,
I searched the woods for its namesake,
cleared an area for building,
stacked log on thick log,
set to flame,
sat naked
as close to the liquid burning sensation,
flowing like ocean waters over sores and open wounds,
to see how close I could get before I felt
a familiar
fire
burn.

Solstice.


On a cold winter's night,
there is nothing quite like warm firelight.


A fiery log spitting embers,
onto a sleeping dog smelling of singed fur.


Sounds of carols played quietly,
of wind blustering mightily.



All in the arms of a lover,
and hot chocolate.

Housefire

Hear the whisper of the flowertongue,
hear the hiss of the splitwood
and the spit of the pine, hear the shouts

of men and their quicksteps sudden
from the far side of the break.
Know the dark rain of cinders,

know the bowing of the elms blackbrittling
beneath it, know the float of the tablecloth,
glow-rimmed and ghost, wisping

across the char. But clearest
of all, most certain of any: father's
shade drifting slow above the ash,

real as flicker, light as shadow: see
his bones, how ember white, how sparks
waver stars above his shoulder. O father,

father, do not reach for me so; the weight
of your hand is more than I may bear,
and it burns, and it burns, and it burns!

Hearth-fire

Among rolling hill-country by gentle shores,
on a hushed winter-tide as twilight descends,
new snowflakes quietly descended in downy array.
Around the low clouds, a fragile moon-sliver smiled fair,
with some glinting companion stars, down upon a manor-hall
with door standing open to welcome expected guests,
to draw them close to a fire in full bloom upon the hearth
and to usher them into the sweet savour of a meal just ready.

The guests were each bidden to a large table full of goodly fare,
amid radiant faces, a company sweet with laughter and mirth.
During the feasting, with clinking plates and glasses glinting in the candlelight,
ladies in fair dresses and gentlemen in high collars and neck-ties
engaged in delightful and witty conversations
while bright-eyed and overdressed children
giggled at the old domestic dog with kind eyes
who had wandered away from his hearthstone bed,
tempted out of warm weary slumber to the savory repast.

The chamber was all ablaze with golden light,
from hearth and sconce, candle and lamp,
all flaming together to bless the home with an ambient warmth.
The cheeks of those present were ruddy in the friendly glow,
while eyes glinted brightly in the engagement of easy companionship
and all complimented the host on the sumptuous and splendid dinner.
.
Near the close of the meal, someone brought out a fiddle-fair
and lilting music filled the hall and lightened the hearts of all the revelers.
An older gentleman deigned to lift his croaking voice to the familiar song
and soon many were moved to sing along in sweet chorus
and so they passed the evening in rousing merriment,
in dancing round after the furniture was pushed aside,
clapping to reels in a festive air,
laughing free in friendly company,
and long shadows leapt across the walls behind
as dancers passed before the wildly blazing hearth.
Courting youths with sideways glances
caught furtive smiles and sparkling eyes,
while bundled babes in maternal arms
beamed and brightened at that late hour,
hearkening amazed at the sparkling lights,
from the hearth-fire and lamplights blazing, dancing
in the midst of so many folk partaking in simple delight.

As the night hours passed amid the augmented mirth,
there came at whiles a discernible dwindling,
as one by one a farewell glass was drunk,
and parting embraces were exchanged at the door.
The guests each departed with warmth of heart,
as the horses made-ready drew up the carriages
with shining lanterns upon each side.

The last hand was waved from the threshold.
The last light away down the road was gone,
and then the family drew inside.
The door was bolted against the burgeoning cold.
Sleeping children were carried to bed.
Lamps were turned down,
candles were snuffed.
A single candlelight was taken up the stairs,
to the beckoning bed chamber.
The last good-night,
a kiss, then sleep -
to meet with peaceful winter dreaming
as the soft snowfall continued though the night.

And fading red the embers glowed
upon the hearth in manor-hall.

Divorce by fire,
screw the courts.
She passes a Bic beneath
her sentencing slip
embossed with a magistrate's seal.
Parole granted by sear.

Flame licks yellowed parchment
sickly as an alky's skin.
Ebony snow falls
onto a coral coverlet
speckled by crusty carmine
from a nose now listing to the left.

An investment of a dollar
for a pink plastic key
to the prison;
all locks tumbled
with roll of a broken thumb.

Half a bottle of Sominex
snuck into the rum
(put him under
but not six feet)
fell short but not as short
as time (her flight leaves at four).

The retirement of C.O. Unstable
must proceed as planned.
She caresses a seam
of his boxers
with the last corner
of flaming past.
Singed pads go unnoticed
as flickering amber devours cotton
and the scent of burning corruption
tickles bloodcaked nares.

Hypnotized by fiery dance,
barking snaps her from her trance
as the troupe takes over the bed.

Suitcase in hand, new persona in pocket,
she steps onto the stoop,
lungs fully inflated with freedom.

The comatose muscles of her cheeks
creak in a comeback smile
as she spins to see
first wisps of flesh fueled smoke
snake through a cracked sash.

He always was an avid fan
of a good barbecue,
surely he's enjoying
his just desserts.

perfect pulchritude
flirts with ravages of time​
crumbles to ashes

White air, still and dry

as delicate as a sliver,

is inturrupted where the Matador floats.

I feel the crackling in my throat.


Inside the Arena,

the barterer trades danger

for red lipstick,glittering eyes,

and the cacophony of roses.



As my fingers worm to hook

into a patch of earth,

my will loses its defense.

I struggle to remember the color green.

Capote, red, blood red, snaps and swirls

commanding the livid flame of Toro

to thunder through the crimson caul.



The Suit of Lights ignites.



Matador, if you came to me as only a man,

speaking to me only with your tongue,

I could not see or hear you.

I can only recognize your blaze, your declaration,

in that Moment of Truth

when you strike my match

and burn the house down.

This challenge is now closed.