Best Firebrand Poems
Oh for pity's sake put some clothes on,
the bracing air will steal your breath..
and I need you to stand and stay strong.
Cold comfort thrills from your chill touch
help me recall why I adore you so...
A chin of the ages rests on my shoulder in sweet affection,
two arms encircle my world in every direction.
Redtail hawk riding a thermal looks down..
what caught its gaze I wonder..
Will the day lend a hand through a pestering cloud,
or roll its eyes in thunder?
Such a fine firebrand you've stoked,
as I shave my face and call your bluff.,
Wishing the once would last forever..
though once was more than enough.
Raven was Death. She dwelt in death. She lived on death. Ages past, she had worn
the blue-black, purple, feathers of the raven and dined on royalty at Tower hill. A
tumble from grace had lodged her here in this fragile form. No more would her maw
drip ruby red, no more would her caw fill the mourning, or her soaring flight slice
the air like a Frenchman’s sword. A Raven, with clipped wings, was she.
Centuries had passed since she, in her feathered form, had feasted on the King.
**Bran the Blessed, giant, King of Wales, had been her down fall. Cursed was she,
as she dined on his eyes, in the field of battle. Ah, what did a raven know
of the curses of man. But, she knew now. Bran's head was placed,
as a talisman, on the grounds of Tower Keep in Londontown. She,
transformed, cursed, walks the night in this beautiful, weak, human vessel for
as long as, Bran's name is remembered.
Her satin-sandaled feet hold her earthbound. Just as superstition
holds her clip-winged brethren in the Tower courtyard, Bran's Curse holds her here.
No longer can she fly, but, she is free to roam. The churchyard calls her. Ashen skies no longer welcome her, but the gravestones, spade-shaped like the tails of carrion feeder, beckon. The evening corpse has arrived. Draped in mourning weeds of black, her death-like pall, luminescent in the moonlight, her lips a tell-tale crimson, she arms her self with a firebrand. The bluish steel glistens. Death with a gun, certainly, one could see the
over kill? She laughs. Looking skyward, she calls. “Husband*, children…”
she mimicks the caw of her unfettered kin. “Come to Ma Ma..dinner is served.”
*Raven's mate for life...or death? ;)
**Bran is the Welsh word for Raven/ King Bran the Blessed
***A NIGHTMARE
Oh, my dear honorable poet!
Words recess when I write about you
For, they start loving you
You were a sincere lover,
when you wrote about love;
You were a lovable mother,
when you wrote about a child;
You were a faithful leaf,
when you wrote about trees;
You were the struggling last breath,
when you praised the air;
You were the righteous river,
when you sang about the falls;
You were the boundless sky,
when you sang for the birds;
you were the yearning bare land,
when you wrote about the rain;
You were the trustworthy soldier,
when you wrote about patriotism;
You were the jubilant mother nature,
when you wrote about nature;
You were the powerful priest,
when you praised the lord
Through your worthy words,
you gave life to the abandoned swaying rope;
Your notable notes,
persuaded songs to the singing koels;
Your incredible imageries,
granted countless ideas for the poets;
Your romantic rhythms,
enriched soulful meaning to the ragas;
Your powerful patriotic songs
obliterated the superfluous fears
and your proud personal life
taught us self-respect
Note: September 11 marks the death anniversary of India’s firebrand poet and a revolutionary thinker from Tamil Nadu, Subramania Bharati. In a relatively short life span of 39 years, Bharati left an indelible mark in India’s history as not only a Tamil poet but also as a national icon.
Towers collapsed to foundations,
The planes exploded in air,
To gratify firebrand preachers
Destruction and death everywhere.
Bus became coffin on byway,
Train torn up beneath ground,
Fanatics end innocent life,
Spin godless chaos around.
Child kneels broken at graveside,
Tears drip down to the earth,
A consciousness of pure evil
Deems human life of no worth.
Enemies fester within,
Harbour a doctrine and creed,
Under the guise of religion,
And nurtures a virulent seed.
Enemies hidden within,
Feral smiles, baring of teeth,
Approve of a racist agenda.
Murder by twisted belief.
Why should we drown beneath?
Fundamental waves of hate,
Why should we have to live
In this an altered state?
They can go to other places
Where their twisted creed is rife,
Where martyrdom and slaughter
Construe their way of life.
The simple, sorry factor
The ironic doctrinaire:
The places of their genesis
Won’t stand them living there.
Thus decent, honest people
Are left unto their fate,
A homeland under terror
Remains an altered state.
"All the Dark Stallions"
Calliope burns
ecstatic bright star
fire brands, all her marks
both hands
holding the ropes
firmly fast today
slow burn
tomorrow
warm whispers
gently towards
the unlit shadows
love wanting always stays
driving all
the dark stallions
towards heaven
where the
Whicker Man
claps for more Light
and
Judgement
patiently waits
(LadyLabyrinth/2020)
Miley Cyrus X Stevie Nicks - Midnight Sky / Edge of Seventeen
https://youtu.be/oRnxO9FRDbU
Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks - Edge of Midnight
https://youtu.be/IJgidX_LC4Q
"Ooh, you know it's true
That I was born to run,
I don't belong to anyone, oh no
I don't need to be loved by you
(Loved by you)"
"O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;
O Night and Stars return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn—"
LYRICS/ Edge of Midnight, Miley Cyrus
https://genius.com/Miley-cyrus-midnight-sky-lyrics
firebrand.
n.
person who is very passionate about a particular cause.
"a political firebrand"
Similar:
radical
revolutionary
troublemaker
agitator
rabble-rouser
demagogue
soapbox orator
incendiary
subversive
tub-thumper
2.
a piece of burning wood.
3.
one that creates unrest or strife (as in aggressively promoting a cause) : AGITATOR
mark
1. Noun
"Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art" / Keats
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44468/bright-star-would-i-were-stedfast-as-thou-art
John Keats/Poet.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats
"Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun" / Emily Brontë
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47644/ah-why-because-the-dazzling-sun
Emily Brontë
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-bronte
The Brontës / Family
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family
on the waning edge of day
sunset rolls white clouds to pink and amber strands
sifting back and forth
like ideas framed by indecision
this sprawling vista
a quiet glide between hope and trepidation
gold-pink clouds knotted in warm stretches of glow
drifting into scattershot lives
pushing
pulling
like threads of firebrand fury
pleated folds of color
a sunset
marginalized to go
menaced by the hermit thoughts of night
leaving a restorative resolve
to look beyond one's self
earth-bound
to stir the life-fire within
Meir Kahane, a visionary, warned us all
Yet far too few heeded his call
Labeled a ‘firebrand’ by all the elites
His message understood by his enemies in the street
He told the West, calmly, what it didn’t want to hear
that Jew-haters' terror would soon have it quaking with fear
And Kahane warned Israel, to have a viable Jewish state
its Arab populace could not be allowed to spew terror and hate
But Israeli liberals said Kahane was ‘racist,’ exiled him to New York city
where a Jew-hater gunned him down in ‘90, a shame and a pity
For now most Israelis see that Kahane was right
terror unchecked has turned the world’s day into night
He is a kind soul and lends a helping hand
He is always my hero; He is everyone’s hero
He puts himself to good cause and is grand
He is a kind soul and lends a helping hand
He is quick to be there on the ground zero
He is a friend of all the children; a firebrand
He is a kind soul and lends a helping hand
He is always my hero; He is everyone’s hero
Superheroes love action and are always a winner
They inspire confidence in us and we feel secure
They are so generous; chance gets even a sinner
Superheroes love action and are always a winner
Superman, Batman, Spider-man, gather for dinner
Work out plans that let peace prevail and endure
Superheroes love action and are always a winner
They inspire confidence in us and we feel secure
Moral:
The moral of the story is that we be kind and brave
help the weak, the poor, the infirm and the naive
Date: 10.8.2014
What can a bewildered brotha’ say,
it happens every unnatural day
Sunshine is labeled as shade,
crystal clear is called opaque fade
Did I make a left turn
into the wrong dimension?
Now I’m seeing curvaceous things
that Nana never mentioned
Me rearview mirror eyes are
side-swipe swivel swerve widening
Was there a hot-iron cool downgrade,
firebrand placed
on my Ocho Rios dreadlock upbraids?
Puff kings are turning into drag queens ...
strange flesh doings,
I-and-I now be-be first-hand witnessing
Boys are turning into girls,
and those goatee girlz are turning into scrotum women
Lord knows,
I feel like I’m living in
Sodom and Gomorrah again
Girls are turning into boys,
and those bosom boyz are turning into vulva men
Now, I’m not for sight sure,
just what glassy gaze starry eyes blurry,
rest beyond the dress curtain
Surprises a-plenty are in store,
when it’s uncertain
what’s behind the gender door
Don’t wanna make the wrong turn,
and roll into the surreal fifth dimension
Twilight Zone neon strip is on burn,
whatcha’ see
might require psychiatric intervention
Girls are turning into boys,
and those boyz are turning into Venus men
Lord knows,
I feel like I’m Sin City living in
ancient Egypt Greece again
Boys are turning into girls,
and those girlz are turning into Mars women
Puff kings are turning into drag queens ...
strange flesh doings
It’s an open-closet psychotropic skin scene
Another brother daisy duke
exhale exigent cross-dress pollination
Pubic bramble bush adolescent tumble,
take a different genitalia turn from
a same sister butch duchess
Boys are turning into girls,
and those girlz
are turning into testosterone women
Lord knows,
I feel like I’m Zion living in
Babylon Rome again
Girls are turning into boys,
and those boyz
are turning into estrogen ova men
Momma drag queens
are the former Daddy puff kings
Nothing on the surface is
quite biological what it seems
Id feelings of a sorrowful kind,
have me heart sprout creeping ivy
of eunuch tear yearning
for a Garden of Eden spiritual awakening
And impotent thoughts of mine
are starting to grow
down below, in-between
Limerick : Once a Firebrand Fräulein from the Black Forest
Once a Firebrand Fräulein from the Black Forest
In winter went out to cut wood sans vest
In fact sans Lederhose
Nor even horse fire hose
So she got fired on wood with zest.
or
So she got fired for good in jest.
or
So she got fired by Crook in earnest.
or
So she got fired in crook by Earnest.
or
So she got fired with Earnest in the nest.
(and so on and on…)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Like Moses fleeing Egypt
and finding refuge in Midian
I was a stranger in a strange land.
Having fled Chicago in ‘84
I journeyed east to the
unpromised land of Detroit.
8 Mile Road.
“I'm a man
I'm a make a new plan”
Eminem makes and takes the rap
while party stores and strip joints
pockmark the urban warscape.
“Super Lotto” “Beer and Wine”
“Liquor“ “Money Orders”
“We accept Food stamps”
“Girls, Girls, Girls”
9 Mile Road.
Driving north through Ferndale where
the Exiles of Gentrification live,
I was reminded of the sixties
and drag racing
stoplight to stoplight.
3-2-1-green
zero to sixty in three gallons
muscleheads in their muscle cars
dual quads, hemi-heads
bored and stroked, raked and shackled
four on the floor, two in the backseat
Jim Beam in the glove box
and fuzzy dice on the mirror.
Up ahead the Reuther crossed
where once a 10 Mile Road proudly served.
Named for a firebrand labor guy,
the freeway heads east out of Roseville,
veers south through Warren
then north and south again.
Torn up and re-built before it opened,
the 20 year in the making
gerry-meandering freeway
flows west around the Zoo
with a zig through Huntington Woods
and a zag through Lathrup Village.
11 Mile Road and electric
eclectic, engaging Royal Oak;
home of the Star Dream sculpture
Farmer’s Market and all things hip—
Just ask ‘em.
11 and a half Mile Road.
Art deco portico with garish neon,
never washed windows and
a pair of 69.9 a gallon pumps,
“No Gas” “No Gas”
Vinsetta Garage,
a Woodward fixture since prohibition,
is voted Motown’s best car repair
year after year after year.
12 Mile Road.
The National Shrine of the Little Flower,
de-flowered in the 1930’s
by radio Priest Charles Coughlin
whose coast to coast broadcasts
railed against bankers and Jews
and that communist FDR.
Like a journalist trying to find the
Who? What? Where? and why?
Like a little boy peering through a keyhole
I found myself in a Motor City funk
looking more than tasting.
Stalingrad
During moments I yearned for forests grown for me alone,
Caressing them in a dream,
I could sense the throbbing of the heart
Hidden beneath my ribs to bless my journey.
Summoning me with a pulse that he recognizes in me.
I heard the noise of abandoned smoke from a moment of care
Join with me,
Forcefully traversing desires to the hidden-most one.
My spirit swung toward him,
Creating a tingling
On lips that devour breaths alive.
I felt ashamed,
But the eye,
In moments—I scarcely know what to call them—that took me on another route
Toward the television, saw warplanes . . . spray death on them.
At that moment,
The fire of machine guns raked all the bodies,
And another fire raked my body when I trained my eye on him
Hesitantly inclining his head
Toward a shoulder unaccustomed to the secret of the stars of war
Or to insomnia.
Oh . . . . I leaned on it!
And when he caressed a dumbfounded person
I felt his fingers like coiling embers inside me.
Bashfulness seized the excuse this caress gave . . . and vanished,
Eliminating distance till the two of us were one.
And the eye—he moaned: May love not forgive her the eye—repeated another evasion
Toward a drizzle of men flung about in the air by just the rustling of a pilot penetrating a building
To fall on screens as the debris of breaking news.
But his breaths . . . shattering the still down of the cheek,
And turning their picture into mist as
Eddies of the screen’s corpses . . . varieties of death that they brought them.
The spirit that became a body,
The body that was sold for the sake of a touch,
The eye that was concealed in his image
And that approached the firebrand of conflagrations.
Everyone drawing close to everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone,
Everyone.
But the thunder of their machine guns splintered them:
Corpses piled on corpses,
I mean on me,
The eyes of those in it were extinguished.
They slept in a trench of silence.
My eyes’ lids parted in a wakefulness obsessed with them.
I rose … and embraced the chill
That the screens brought me in commemoration of Stalingrad.
Translated by William Hutchins
Nestled deep in the tawny, drab woodland
Sedate cottage neither haughty nor grand
Sparse hovel of unassuming, itinerant brigand
Martial decor of detached highwayman starkly bland
The etched path sculpted by intemperate hand
No manicured garden on the scrubby strand
Briers and brambles errant straggler must withstand
Thatched clapboards stable his stallion firebrand
Unruly swine garnish acorns from scraggly wasteland
Buried deep in his cellar pilfered contraband
Per chance drifter did the terrain assay
And chose that toilsome, forsaken way
A spartan welcome hauteur did convey
No lodgings, accoutrements could sway
If for grace, mercy they did pray
Only a cold shoulder he did relay
If they tested his temperance and sued for trite parley
He reconnoitered their belongings through wordplay
If no net value they were beguiled to betray
Their worthless lives he did indignantly slay
They call me “ FIREBRAND”
Everywhere I go there is a demand
I slay giants and creatures
I possess distinct features,
Golden hair as thick as a mane
Eyes that set fires causing my enemies great pain
I swirl in the wind, leaving my healing dust
I devour those who abuse other peoples trust
I leave my imprint in weeping willow tress
I pity the lions that try to deceive me
When I laugh musical notes stumble out of my lips
I have a leather strap, buckled tightly, around my hips
My sword rest soundly until it’s time to be used
I enjoy demolishing monsters that like to abuse
Smoke whirls into messages from beneath my feet
They know when I am coming, I make a noticeable beat.
By: Sabina Nicole
Hauteur brigand bound for gratuitous strand
Knows not he is country's chattel, enemy's contraband
As gallant marauders o'er ages spanned
His quest for glory fate will countermand
Gleeful lad starting out on quick, definitive errand
Becoming grizzled veteran in war that will opportunistically expand
Raw recruit ready to fight for: family, honor, land
Feted for trivial pursuits, political ends; on mission clandestined
Tailored uniform, coiffed hat, shiny ordinand
Destined to be sullied by the designs of ruthless marksman
In ritual parade of arms on regal, stately stand
Unaware of his wistful foe's unremitting hand
With loyal comrades bivouacked in tidy
band
Soon to be in raucous tumult marked with a beastly brand
Dutiful, diligent soldier always firing on demand
In the heat of battle, only self preservation will command
Pre-war sprawling tenements; deprivations can withstand
Later, in squalid camp morphing into looting, pillaging firebrand
Vital piece in war game carefully mapped, planned
Innocuous pawn anonymously falling in unmarked, lowland.