Fire Dance
Lasso those streaks of fire.
Reach for the leaping flames
soaring skywards from the bauro yog -
the good fire - burning unashamed.
Sandaled feet almost treading the embers,
sleeves rolled back and forearm hair singeing
as you dance the Fire Dance,
embracing the red and yellow sprites.
Motto - drunk - with the call of the wild,
each pass of bare arms through the flames
slower than the one before, until the flames grab
and you move faster again, smiling.
Weathered faces glowing, eyes sparkling
as everyday burdens are cast aside.
Pausing momentarily to pinch out glowing
embers burning both shirt and dikklo.
“Uncle John’s pushing his luck tonight.”
Says the Serbian witch-woman, keeping
her own chavvies back from the flames,
deep set eyes dark and unfathomable.
“Step aside!” My nephew, a quiet little geek
in his working life, has caught the Pyro-Fever.
Three running steps in the darkness and
he leaps the flames to wild applause.
The witch-woman nods her understanding.
He’s a good husband but sometimes,
a man has to be one with the elements
and embrace the fire.
She brews coffee, as thick as mud,
as bitter as death, and tells fortunes
from the slurry in the bottom of the
tiny mugs. Black patterns in the firelight.
As the fire burns down strange tales are told.
As the flames grow smaller the chavvies
shuffle closer and reach tentatively, too quickly,
at the smaller flames. Their day will come.
The more civilised go in to watch the TV
whilst the elementals stay, watching the embers.
Glowing grottoes spark and crumble away,
as tiny yellow flame sprites flare briefly in the wind.
To the gas barbecue neighbours it’s
a stinky bonfire, a polluting throwback
to the Dark Ages. For us, and ours,
a defence against the Modern Darkness.
Live flames, not the cold sodium scatter
of streetlights blanking out the stars.
Real heat, real risks, not the pseudo
buzz of flat-life flat-screen computer games.
Gyppo