MainImage

MainImage

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Today's Poem or Short Story Prompt: The Word "Fire"

This blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too.

Our goal is to provide you with a prompt every day from which you are to garner inspiration and submit a poem. How to submit will be very easy.  Just put your poem or short story  in the comments section and hit post. You may not immediately see your post, but it is there under the "Comments" section. You may need to click on "Comments" to see your poem.  It is there on another page.
You may need to have a Gmail account to post in the comments section.  Most of you do have Gmail, but for those of you that don't it's extremely worthwhile to open up one now!  That way you've got a chance to get your work out there in the world.

Today's poem or short story prompt is the word " fire".
 



 

3 comments:

  1. HEAT


    burning
    dripping
    consuming

    bright
    hot

    money
    fat
    passion
    embarrassment
    cleansing

    does the light draw you?
    or the heat?

    metaphorically:
      god
      idea
      ambition
      desire
      god

    bright and hot
    it pulls you closer

    you get burned

    does it burn away what you don't need
    or does it burn away
      everything

    you don't care
    you keep inching closer
      to the burning bush

    ----
    they wait in rows
    ten people deep


    - Mike Fedel
    May, 2013

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Welsh Rarebit Fires

    Fire and Welsh Rarebit shall always be linked in my mind. My brother was enamored with both.

    Welsh Rarebit for the uninformed (and why should you be informed of an eighteeth-centrury tavern dish) is composised primarily of melted cheddar cheese mixed with ale, mustard, paprika and Worcestershire sauce). However, this dish was never created at our house, instead my mother bought frozen boxes of the dish from Stouffer's. To serve this dish, one simply melted the cheese mixture in the oven and then place bread in the toaster until it's lightly browned. Since my family appearently could not get enough of Worcestershire sauce, this sauce was again added to the dish before it came to the table.

    I don't know why my brother could not get enough of this dish. Perhaps, it was the sophistication of the name, the several steps above a grilled cheese, but still a cousin, a close relative. It didn't scare a twelve-year old with vegetable remnants nor ask that twelve-year old to follow a complicated recipe just to get a meal into his stomach. Plus, with the addition of the latest small appliance that came into our house, the toaster oven, he could set the dial to 350 degrees, set the frozen tray on the toaster pan, and then wait a mere 15 minutes for dinner.

    The thing was my brother, who was never diagnosed with ADD, and who I doubt has that condition, would then get wrapped up in TV at his friend Ronnie's house. Or if it wasn't TV next door it was street hockey--two streets over.

    Now, no one could blame a six year old for lighting matches. I mean kids do that all the time. Lighting matches, lighting fire to guest towels, taking the stuffing out of pillow and laying the stuffing on the floor and setting it on fire. You can't blame a six-year old with the fascination that comes from igniting things in the physical world.

    Hey, you can't even be suspicious if a woodpile mysteriously appears in your back yard and it sets itself on fire. Or if the grassy strip next to the garage suddenly alights as someone thought it a swell idea to kill the weeds with gasoline. This can be classified under the category: Shit Happens.

    Yet after the 3rd Welsh Rarebit fire, even the most tuned-out, in-denial, bingo-addled mom has to acknowledge that her boy might have a problem. You'd think. But, no. The fires continued. Only the rising cost of replacing multiple toaster ovens stopped the madness. That and our city's fire department warning my mother they were not coming out for any more toaster fires. Their straightforward advice: Quit using toaster ovens or stop your son from cooking Welsh Rarebit.

    I don't know what stopped my brother. He had no fear of firemen or the prospect of our house burning to the ground. Perhaps, cars or stereos or girls took over as his focus of attention. Or maybe it had something to do with starting smoking at age 13.

    ReplyDelete