The Maiden and the Flames
She was scarcely twenty one
on the day the Reaper came.
A writer of great promise;
Toru Dutt was her name.
Bengali was her native tongue,
but only just her first.
She had conversed in German,
written French and English verse.
Now she lay silent, dressed in white
in the company of flowers.
A shame it was a funeral pyre
and not her wedding bower.
Her sister, overcome with grief,
Her Parents both the same.
Her sad eyed father lit the torch
and consigned her to the flames.
How quickly did those flames consume
the girl who lived to write.
Her dust was carried on the winds
from the sacrificial site.
The beauty of her verse endures
and will preserve her name.
That's all that could be salvaged
of the maiden from the flames.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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The Last Journey
I sat on my haunches, dry eyed
as she motionless and rigid lied
On the cemented, grey floor
near the old decrepit door.
All near and dear ones
were crying in muffled tones.
She lay oblivious to it and the rain
her face serene and erased of all pain.
She had to be dressed in accordance with custom
Like a bride
as she had died
a ‘sobhagavati’.
Her clothes had to be cut off from her stiff, cold body
in front of everybody.
She lay exposed, shriveled
unmindful of the indignity,
In contrast to the dignity
with which she had lived her life,
As a mother and a wife.
She was bathed with ‘Ganga-Jal’
dressed in fine silk and dot of vermillion.
Then began her final journey.
She was put on a funeral pyre,
as the flames leapt higher
Her mortal remains were burnt,
all that was left were some bones and dust.
It was collected in a urn
to be immersed in a sacred river turn by turn.
And carried away to an unknown destination
leaving behind all she had loved with dedication.
poem by Mamta Agarwal
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The guardian of the flames
Always there have been
something holy to me,
about flames
that comes alive suddenly.
It’s a great thing
to see flames spread
and to see yellow licking tongs,
consume wood
and to get heat, energy
and comfort from it.
At a time human existence
surely depended on
keeping the secret
of flames
and to make sure,
that the last glowing coals
do not die.
When I was a child,
my brother and me
almost burnt a hillock
and some residences down
by misadventure.
The more I tried to kill
the small fire,
that I started in the long brown winter grass,
the more the fire spread.
It’s a fact that my behind
also burnt on that occasion
from a hiding
with a old fan belt
and I learned quickly,
what the power of fire is
and how to act responsibly with matches.
Tonight I am the guardian of the flames
at the fireplace in the lounge
and I take care of the hot coals
and have to put wood on
before the fire dies.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Girl On Fire
(the margarita horns: bill runge (baritone sax), paul baron & derry byrne (trumpets),
Tom keenlyside (tenor sax & arranger))
I just landed
Girl on fire
I felt the heat
From sydney to london
Well she shut my mouth
With her repartee
I opened hers
With the rest of me
Girl on fire
Baby burn burn burn
Girl on fire
Baby burn burn burn
Outta the shadows
Comes a dirty song
The same old faces
Try to keep you in line
I saw you laughing
At the very first show
You lit up the city
From the twenty-sixth floor
Girl on fire
Baby burn burn burn
Girl on fire
Whats saving her
Baby burn burn burn
Baby burn burn burn
Baby burn burn burn
I just landed
Girl on fire
I felt the heat
From new york to london
Well she shut my mouth
With a repartee
I opened hers
With the things that I say
Girl on fire
Thats the heat that burns
Girl on fire
How the flames make you learn
Girl on fire
Baby burn burn burn
Girl on fire
How the flames make me yearn
Girl on fire
Girl on fire
Girl on fire
Girl on girl on
Flames are rising
Flames are rising
Flames are rising
Flames are rising
song performed by by INXS
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Schizophrenia
And so I closed my eyes, my soul shielded
They'll never find me through the smoke.
by the darkness. Protected by the warmth
Like a blanket. I should rest here.
of the wildfire that lay before me.
The flames smell of Blood and Hope
The ashes blanketed the ground:
and the ashes float with my footsteps
a ground made from layers of dust
The dust will swallow me.
left by countless fires of the past.
I must find Home.
By flames only quenched by suffocation.
Suffocation! My suffocation!
And I felt the heat of those flames, too.
But Home is hiding from me.
They licked at my fingers, but I ran.
My fingers were frozen. Red and frostbitten
And no matter how fast I ran, they ran
Home will be gone soon. I must find it.
faster. A Labyrinth of flames.
I am lost,
Where my thread was burned and the Minotaur
never to be found:
would never be found, just as I was.
Home destroyed by the flames with me.
poem by Zoe Guillory
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Death
Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,
unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:
as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee:
the wood that long resisted the advancing flames
which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig
and burn in thee.
My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury
has turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent.
Is it still I, who there past all recognition burn?
Memories I do not seize and bring inside.
O life! O living! O to be outside!
And I in flames. And no one here who knows me.
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Soul of Flames
I sit and watch as the flames lick at the bricks
The red, and orange tipped beauty
The tongues of fury lick
As it burns through the wood and metal preforming its duty
The red hipmotizing, the orange bright
I watch the light fill the black
What a wonderful sight
Bringing the memories back
The house falls to pieces as I sit and stare
My tears falling to the ground
My eyes filled whith the flames glare
My tears fall to the ground without a sound
I sit and watch as the flames lick at the bricks
The red, and orange tipped with beauty
The flames swirl and mix
As I sit in silence intranced with love and lust
The flames so wonderful so bright
The night dark as coal
My eyes filled with stars, with light
The flames licking at my soul
poem by Bethany Maxwell
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Believe In Trees
Belonging from, nowhere to somewhere, never in or to - Company of the twisted tongue, spend with snakes i prefer to your screaming tongue, the one which ash flames to a fires back - Invented by noone, excuses of the everyone, that blame is for your face the shame - Hands on my knees, the singing of the bees, the buzz rings true to the lost of my hive, rather i choose to be free, truthfull, as to live my lies of life and not to be me - i saw the trees, i see without leaves, i believe without a bark, dogs to grief
poem by Unic Cjonr
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Elegy for Tibullus
If Memnon's mother mourned, Achilles's mother mourned,
and our sad fates can touch great goddesses,
then weep, and loose your hair in grief you never earned,
Elegy, now ah! too much like your name.
That bard whose work was yours, who gave you fame, Tibullus,
burns on the mounded pyre, a lifeless corpse.
See Venus's boy, bearing his quiver upside down;
his bow is broken and his torch is quenched;
look how he goes dejected: his wings trail on the ground;
he smites his naked breast with violent hand;
his tears dampen the curls that fall around his neck,
and heaving sobs keep breaking on his lips.
(Just so he went out, fair Iulus, from your house,
they say, at his brother Aeneas's funeral.)
No less was Venus stunned by her Tibullus's death
than when the fierce boar smote her lover's thigh.
They say we bards are sacred, favorites of the gods,
and even that there's something holy in us,
but that churl Death defiles every sacred thing:
his shadowy hand appropriates us all.
Was Orpheus saved by his father and mother, who were gods,
or by his songs that tamed the astonished beasts?
They say that that same father sang 'Linos! Ai, Linos! '
deep in the woods on his reluctant lyre.
And Homer, too, from whom, as from an endless fount,
bards' lips are moistened with the Muses' waters,
one last day pulled him under Avernus's murky wave:
his songs alone escaped the greedy pyre.
The work of bards endures: Troy's famous sufferings,
and the endless shroud, undone by nightly fraud.
So Nemesis and Delia: both their names will live,
the one his first, the one his latest love.
But what use now your rites? What use the Egyptian rattle?
What use, to have slept alone in an empty bed?
When harsh fate steals away the good (forgive my words!)
I almost want to believe there are no gods.
Live virtuous: you will die. Respect the gods: grim Death
will drag you from their altars to your grave.
Write glorious verse, and see! here Tibullus lies:
one small urn holds the dust of what he was.
Is it you the blazing pyre bears off, O sacred bard,
not dreading to be fed upon your breast?
Flames that dare so great a blasphemy would burn
the golden temples of the blessed gods!
She turned aside her gaze who rules Mt. Eryx's heights,
and some say she could not restrain her tears.
And yet it's better thus than if Phaeacia's land
had strewn mere dirt on your neglected grave.
Here, as you fled life, your mother closed your streaming
eyes, and brought her last gifts to your ashes.
Here your sister joined your mother in her grief
and came with loosened hair all disarrayed.
And with their kisses Nemesis and your first love
joined theirs, and did not leave your pyre forsaken,
and Delia, as she left, said, 'Happier far your love
for me: you lived, while I was still your flame.'
'Why, ' Nemesis replied, 'do you grieve for my loss?
Dying, he clutched me with his failing hand.'
If anything remains of us but name and shade,
Elysium's vale will be Tibullus's home,
and you will greet him, learned Catullus, ivy bound
on your young brow, with Calvus at your side,
and you (if it is false that you betrayed your friend)
Gallus, careless of your blood and soul.
These shades will be your comrades, if any shades there are:
you have joined the blessed, elegant Tibullus.
May your bones find repose within their sheltering urn,
and may earth not lie heavy on your ashes.
- translated from the Latin by Jon Corelis
What The Captain Said
They made the fire so they want it to spread
the fire, the fire, the fire
They fan the flame to the forest bed
and the flames grew
higher, and higher, and higher
Remember what the captain said by the oceanside
where we took our ride
'We want no more soldiers dead, so come see us by the fire; '
Prometheus desire, the fire
by the fire, as the flames grow higher
We lay upon our riverbed, upon the Styx
the mosh pit Styx upon the pyre
Eyes wide, quartered dry, heads to the sky
and they watch the flames grow higher, and higher,
the fire
poem by Jay Bradley
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Down In Flames
Christians, we're all afraid of fire.
We prefer to suck on pacifiers.
Baby pacifists, we're throwing fits.
We don't shake hands, we shake our fists.
We're cannibals.
We watch our brothers fall.
We eat our own, the bones and all.
Finally fell asleep on the plane.
To wake up and see we're going down in flames.
We're going down, down, down in flames.
We're gonna drown, drown, drown insane.
We see the problem and the risk,
but nothing's solved.
We just say, "Tisk, tisk, tisk." and "Shame, shame, shame."
Finally fell asleep on the plane.
To wake to see we're going down in flames, down in flames.
Christians, we mourn, the thorn is stuck in the side of the body.
Watch it self-destruct.
The enemy is much ignored when we fight this Christian civil war.
We're cannibals, We watch our brothers fall.
We eat our own, the bones and all.
Finally fell asleep on the plane.
To wake to see we're going down in flames.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Na na na na na, na na na na.
Banana na na, na na na.
Let me pause to clarify
('cause I'm sure you're asking, "Why?").
I stand before you,
and proudly claim to belong to what this song complains.
I'm part of the problem I confess,
but I got to get this off my chest.
Let's extinguish the anguish for which we're to blame,
and save the world from going down in flames.
song performed by by Relient K
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dreams and Shadows
Flames, dreams, candles, shadows,
All dance in sight.
Flames on a far, dim hill, or near,
Close, in the night.
Torches, running in shadows,
Across the dry valley.
Candles nearby, flames alike,
Join in swift memory.
Lost wanderers, walking in realms,
Realms of cold darkness.
Stars fly to us, and dance, on the white,
Cold, flowing stillness.
Flames, and light, leap high, in the far,
Gray, hopeless distance;
On a ridge, hidden away, and dance,
Dance their reckless dance.
poem by Jerome Brooke
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Fire Fighters
God ignites fire
He ignites fire everywhere free
The flames spread wild
Planting flowers jading we.
We are fire fighters
We fight fire the more it flames
The more it flames the more water burns out
Our fire trucks go out of control.
We are fire fighters
But we cannot extinguish God's fire.
poem by Mehreen Mujeeb
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Siren Of Fire
Fire:
When the water turns to mist
And the flames are rising high
I'll appear to you my darling
To wipe the tears from your eyes
I'll dance around the fire pit
Running wild with the flames
But as soon as the fire is out
I'll leave you without so much as my name
Water:
When water extinguishes the flame
It will also extinguish me
I will leave you to yourself
To soak in memory
When the land is watered down
And you stand beside the sea
Look for the bonfires
For that is where you'll find me
Burned:
Don't play with fire dearest
You know you will be burned
Leave the flames to me my love
They remind me of how I've yearned
For the sensation of my fire
That keeps our passions hot
I'll stay with you until the tide comes in
But after, I cannot
Drowned:
They douse the flames with water
Putting out the light
I drown with the flames
That ensnared you all night
I cannot stay with you now
My flames have been drowned out
But remember whenever you need me
Fire will bring me about
poem by Tatianna Rei Moonshadow
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5th of November, Guy Fawkes' day
Burn bonfires to forget not,
The treasonous gunpowder plot,
Praise be the scheme was to be thwart,
And those responsible soon caught,
The fires make the night sky glow,
Fireworks give a thrilling show,
While effigies that flames consume,
Get dressed in a Guy Fawkes costume.
Though the house of Lords escaped flames,
And cries sounded long live king James,
Have the fifth of November marked,
For what traitors tried to have sparked,
A few that were fearful of change,
Shamed by what they sought to arrange,
Their country they were to betray,
On what's now known as Guy Fawkes' day.
poem by Christian Lacdael
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Flames
Every man is a flame
God the hands that lights us
Satan the lips that blow the wind that seeks to quench us
Our destiny
To stay aflame
We are all flames
Though from different races
Our mission
To ensure that in our desire
To stay flames
We keep as many flames aflame
Together as flames
Our vision burns brighter
Our mission clearer
And the lips that blow the wind
Will only spread us
Never quench us
As flames
We stay close to the hands that light us
And together we remain aflame
poem by Onyeka Omenye
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My Nightmare of 2004
i look at my house once lived
trying to hold back my decending teas
i look where i once lived
i promise you home i will never forget the memories here
i stand there watching the flames and smoke rolling up into the sky
i stand scared and crying
why did this happen twice, they try to hold me back as i run towards the house, as the house started to curmble all you could see was smoke and flames, my moms face there scared
not again god please
my whole family split up again
as i stood there in what was left all i could do is cry.
poem by Sarah Selinger
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Men with a Heart
Who wrote lyrics for the songbird?
And who made music and the tune?
Have you got any idea of the meaning?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are deaf.
Did you see the beauty of a flowing river?
And you feel the coolness of a pond.
Have you ever thought the nature is your friend?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are blind.
Do you understand the dialects of trees and beasts?
And the secret murmur of the wind.
Have you ever tried to learn their language?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are dumb.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The Widow's Lament in Springtime
Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Caterpillar
Flicka flicka flicka
Here you are
Cata cata cata
Caterpillar girl
Flowing in
And filling up my hopeless heart
Oh never never go
Dust my lemon lies
With powder pink and sweet
The day I stop
Is the day you change
And fly away from me
You flicker
And you're beautiful
You glow inside my head
You hold me hynotized
I'm mesmerized
Your flames
The flames that kiss me dead
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Caterpillar
Flicka flicka flicka
Here you are
Cata cata cata
Caterpillar girl
Flowing in
And filling up my hopeless heart
Oh never never go
Dust my lemon lies
With powder pink and sweet
The day i stop
Is the day you change
And fly away from me
You flicker
And you're beautiful
You glow inside my head
You hold me hynotized
I'm mesmerized
Your flames
The flames that kiss me dead
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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