The Fire Prance

Step by Step: The Fire Prance
(A dance for swabhands, arrangement: circular)

1. Light a large fire on shore, when the flames have died down rake the embers into a large circular formation.
2. Share a flagon with the swab next to ya and wipe away the dribble with the back of yer sleeve.
3. Now, pace around the fire making rhythmic hauling noises. Thrust a cutlass to the click-cracking of the embers.
4. Now all point at the first man in the circle (he is easy to spot as he is at the front of the circle).
5. The first man must walk directly across the glowing embers towards the back of the circle. During this the remaining swabs should use palm or banana leaves to scoop up some of the embers and hoist them into the air, hollering in celebration, ‘We’re not at sea, we have no need to break our backs!’ (for example) while the hot embers rain upon them.
6. Every swab who has walked across the fire no longer partakes in the hoisting of the embers. Now they should think about how much they miss the waves and spray of the seas.
7. Repeat for each swab in the circle.

The Stag

Seven days before the laughter of the horns of the Bacchae crossed the cusp of the hill and into the broad valley on the green road to the Court of King Jelly Roll, six witnessed the scene to be described. The six were; Mad Sweeney from treetops; Yuxa, winking from the undergrowth; Gilfaethwy as boar, upon whom was Freya with feathers; Hong-yu, a vixen; Badessy from the sky.

In a glade by a pool, a shallow pool of rained water stretched barely rippling like a reflection of the sun, a stag stood grooming. No other deer awake or near, the stag looked placid up to trees like antlers. In grazing brambles stark against the last of withered leaves before the breeze, he found a thirst and came as many days before to where the water gathered for its travels. With the quivering splendid soft bronze of his flanks in clear view now of the sky, it was no wonder that the starlings and the blackbirds fought their choruses through the waves. The stag approached the water, crisp blue under noon day Sun, and bent his neck and lapped it cool and clear, still holding the green scent of dew from dark before the dawn.

As the chorus continued, many tones, the stag drank deep, and, as the day maintained her thrilling promise of the blossom, the water, never moving, appeared suddenly as a tapestry, became a gauze of liquid gold, but fresh. The whole world might have gasped but for the stag who, with brown eyes above dignity, continued to drink, and the air felt pregnant with the loosing muscles of a real beast taking in what water he required. That gold, never a necklace, shone then in his eyes.

In seven days, with the antlered branches stretching in their buds, the first faint echoes came of the coming congregation. Wine in every pocket of the broad grins on their faces, they rounded the hill wreathed in vines with no alarm to the various animals watching. At first they stared near silent, wide-eyed into the sky between two hills, and then they flung their bare flesh into brambles, laughing, bleeding, and they called with pipes and laughter to the animals and they brought them, always dancing, to the fold and carried on with singing down the green road home.

Caravan & The Guillotine

The Guillotine:
She was a Soviet model; all leggy and bobbed in blonde licks a steal for the senses you might reckon. She was tall and far more fun loving than you might think coz she pouted and smoked and she did drugs and maybe other things that you shouldn’t find cool, you might even love her if she wasn’t so impossible, so distant- Even if I’d had the inclination I could never have reached her I woulda just dreamt and, y’ know I think that’s better anyway,
…I’d of still liked her as a friend but…
[So just on the now of this lit-up-disco-spree for three bits of loving and some shrapnel fee comes the part I was really wanting to say, the story if you like.]
…
So she was just writhing, I mean, really out of it- her head was all over and she was just jerking from side to side, frenzied. She was wearing sunglasses; it was definitely night-time though and she started spilling her drink on those lighting-up-tiles, it’s a wonder there wasn’t an accident. By now there was no glitter of control: it was terrifying her sunglasses fell to the ground and you could see her eyes, they weren’t red but they weren’t the right colour. She was flinging her arms about and people were stepping out of the way of them until she was alone in the middle of a circle of faces. Then she threw her arms back and,
I couldn’t believe it…
her left arm just flew… flew across the room,
then the right arm. You could see the faintest hint of trapped panic in her eyes especially when her left leg fell away.
Christ!
She lost her balance then,, as you might,, and toppled to the floor, still writhing, mind.


Caravan:
One left on written invitation, many followed.
(Every now and again they’d stop for a greasy breakfast at the roadside caravanserai where very few questions were asked.)
A trick: Diurnal wolves with stationery ate them one night.