HOT LIKE FIRE//Said Suleiman
We don’t need fuel
to start this fire
for this is not a homemade fire
but a wild one
from nowhere it starts
with unknown cause
natural cause must be
to last forever
with the same spirit of the wild fire
not a second extinguishable
not with manmade extinguisher
Ablaze and hot, day and night.
Let us make this fire
then let us be the fire itself
to perform love-science theory
where emotions burned with reactions
to produce actions
then let your love-emotions be hot over me
so that my reactions being hot over you
only to produce real-love-actions
where everything I do is for you
and everything you do is to be for me
then everything we do is to be for love’s sake
so that our love remains
as hot as wild fire, forever
for we shall no longer be two
but love makes us one.
UNTITLED // Eleanor Griplas
They gave him a necklace
A perfect circle
It was second hand, already worn
It was black and made of rubber
They forced it round his neck
and doused him with fuel
with hatred in their eyes
Sheer contempt for his fate
they turned him into an inferno
The flames exterminated him
The agony consumed him
Minutes of excruciating horror
His screams alerted others
He was helpless and so were they
his cinder crusted body writhed
Someone grabbed a bucket
Threw water at and over him
It was too little, too late
As the water extinguished the flames
His life quickly followed
Fire, an essential element
the life giver, the life saver
misused so brutally, so cruelly
I know that fire can transform a solid
into another state, a liquid, a gas or
in this case a spirit
….. they gave him a necklace
DAY OF DREAD//Thomas Green
Fire, pop, bang, sounds ricochet through the air
Off the walls of narrow city streets.
It pierces the calm of our normal day
Passers by now quick on their feet.
Was that a fire cracker or no?
Was all too soon revealed
Women once relaxed now in panicked disarray
Fear etched on their faces as they swish and rush past
An urgency to move from some evil down the street.
One POP, and a pause, two more and then another
Came this eerie sound with results yet unknown.
A woman screams and her wails penetrate through the air
Our once peaceful street’s calm broken
By vicious men who have now fled the other way.
Two men pierced by gunfire this day
Lay prone bleeding in the nearby street
I dare not look at the frightening scene.
A pool of blood spreads as life spills away with
each beat of their fear-stricken hearts.
One man grows cold and ashen gray
Life nearly pulsing away
As the woman splashed with acid to her once wholesome face.
Shrieking with painful grief as life will never be the same
Her features boiling away from such an evil act.
Calm returned to our streets in an hour or so.
Victims carried broken but thankfully not dead
With their lives forever changed for naught
What remains to us is unsightly crimson spots
To remind us of this dastardly day of dread.
FIRE AND THE FIRST STEP TO LOVE// Thomas Green
How did it start?
Was it a word from the dark?
Out from nowhere it was he did dart
From the crowd at Monroe’s Bar that one Spanish night.
To ignite the one sought after spark.
I sat alone at the bar with my head in my hands
Not knowing what I was to do.
I was abandoned there feeling so all alone,
dumped like some ugly little girl
The man he cared nothing
He left me on my own .
The only familiar face, a tall Spaniard
The long–haired barman dark and burly.
He somehow noticed my sorry plight.
He signaled to one youth to come by my side.
From the smoke filled crowd he did appear
but I could not speak his mother tongue
And mine he was unable to speak at all well.
Somehow we carried on with night’s escapades,
That started from that one tiny spark
And a Jack Daniels the fuel we both did drink.
Amancio was his name, cool as dark Spanish nights
Smooth like honey his Arabian skin.
He was so handsome I could say, lush lips like pillows
Dark and deep penetrating eyes.
He treated me like something a princess
A lady right from the start.
A night of dancing we did share.
The loud music did so blare
No need for words through the night
our passion would not abate
Into his bed that night I did fall.
The next meeting was to be
By the stage door where I worked.
It was plain and discreet off to one side
Of the grandest nightclub in town.
There we would meet between shows
planning to eat there neaby
A dinner over red wine with near wordless exchange
Just enjoying each other once more.
That was not the way it went
For the Nightclub soon was rent
By a fire from protesters on that day.
The club was ablaze and chaos reigned there what a frey
Firemen running hoses, the place sooty and scorching hot.
Would he be there by that door?
I hope and I prayed
How else would I see him again
He might be there, but I could not be so sure
So I went and there he was
Just as we had said
Patiently waiting holding a red rose.
With one red rose there he stood
Among the chaos that night
Looking angelic among the harrowing mess.
“A rose for me!” “thanks” I said and I motioned
“let’s move to a less calamitous place.”
I did greet him there that intrepid day
And who could really say
love lasting a lifetime this beginning would be.
And so our love took flight that one fretful night
Long lasting beyond our wildest dreams.
PLAYING WITH MATCHES// Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein
I was a girl who played with matches
Crouched low in those grimy alley ways
Behind our middle school. It was our afternoon ritual –
Me and my best friend, who also liked to play with matches
Who liked to shake the match box like a tiny maraca,
Her fist full of potential fire in the dark cold that was our lives.
It was the kind of thing that winter would bring:
A restless, bone chilling desire to be devious.
Go out in the freezing cold all bundled up
And strike that one lick of heat that could save us
From the deadly white drone that was our winter hell.
What could keep us so occupied, hidden for hours
In the afternoon that was already night on the dark hemisphere?
The lesson was to strike and keep on striking.
If struck, the promise of fire was already broken.
Set the promise itself on fire.
There was nothing else to do.
It was the light we were after, not heat.
The smell and smudge of ash and smoke
Was all we were after, after all.
Fire was the antidote to loneliness.
Fire was the ancient kiss.
We wanted to smoulder on someone else’s shoulder.
Wanted to win again in the ancestral grin of eternity.
Wanted our shadows keeping us company in the waiting room
Of lives lived behind the future’s gate.
We let each match burn down to its natural root
Young goddesses unaware yet of our innate powers
To keep a fire going with our breath.
Over and over again we failed to matter beyond the match.
And it was a match made not in heaven but in some factory
Far away in India, China, or Peru, places we girls
Only knew from history books, which we also could have burned
Had we learned to keep our matches lit.
THE COLOR RED// Thomas Green
When those who I trust
Use me like a pawn
When those I depend on
Deceive, mistreat me and abuse me
The fire of anger simmers secretly in my blood.
That fire did rise and my blood did explode.
Unexpectedly my pressure was rising,
my temples painful and pulsing so strong, like a blast.
Hate burned with heat scorching my unsuspecting soul,
A hate so profound I should never have known.
Until one day came such fury and anger
Burning like a fire deep to my very core.
It is just like a blazing burning fire
That seethes well out of control
It turned my world all shades of red.
I was told this could happen, and it’s so.
Seeing the color red is no longer just a saying
To express an anger surging from within.
No colloquial expression meant to prove a point,
It’s a reality, not an imaginary sin.
Blood spills over to cloud tinting vision red.
A rage that crackles and consumes with such a dire dread.
I had to escape in a frenzy,
RUN from the object of my anger’s lust.
I was afraid that I would loose control.
A woman who I had once considered a fair friend,
Appeared as if from nowhere to torment my soul.
She cheated me of money due for my labors
Six months of my life seemed now totally lost
Six months were my part of the bargain
sacrifice given expecting money in return .
Two years I patiently requested the money be paid,
Yet each time a crafty lie to me was told.
Lame excuses denied me of any respect.
my money to this day I cannot expect.
my self-respect ruined , dead and cold.
The damage spawned a hate that was so deep seated, I did not know,
but now I do certainly know the hurt was buried and hidden in my soul.
My world turned red in a flash, in an instant like a spark igniting
Just seeing this woman cross my path so inadvertently, not inviting.
I left the scene where I could have committed an ugly dire crime,
if a weapon were there close at hand.
Dreadful consequences I avoided on that one frightful day
ferocity so fierce that my world suddenly turned a deep dark red.
Oh for release from such deep-seated anger, I do pray,
I still bear them such hate to this very day.
