• Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26

    michael raven

    You are walking down a trail that you walk all of the time between this place and that place and you are quite fixated on minding your own business when a artery branches off from the trail that you could have sworn had not business being there, or that had failed to exist before (whichever came first).

    So you stop and have a Little Chat with yourself.

    “I don’t recall there being a Mysterious Trail leading away from this much Bigger Trail before in this particular spot, do you?” you ask the air.

    “I am quite certain there was not a Mysterious Trail leading off from this one. I would have noticed if there had been,” you reply.

    And, being the Observant Type of person that you are, you nod in agreement with yourself — surely you would have noticed a Mysterious Trail before now, had it existed.

    Also being the Adventuresome Sort (oh do be an Adventuresome Sort for today — you might like it), you decide to see where the Mysterious Trail takes you.

    The Mysterious Trail narrows and closes in on you until you are not quite sure if the Mysterious Trail still exists and you are just about ready to return to the Bigger Trail when you find yourself stepping into a Forest Clearing.

    In the center of the Forest Clearing is an Ancient Well — or it looks rather Ancient anyway, though you admit you’ve put off getting new glasses for longer than recommended and it might just be the Ancient Glasses and not the Well having that Ancient effect.

    “Well. That’s not at all what I would have expected,” you say to yourself.

    Before you can reply, a Something sitting at the Well responds instead.

    What is the Something at the potentially Ancient Well and what is their response that interrupts you from answering yourself?

    Tell me in the comments.

    tagged:

    , ,

    filed under:

    1 comment on Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26

    To like, click comments or:

    Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26

  • shards, ii

    michael raven

    Close your eyes reading this one; it will help.

    never will you ever find me
    never will i ever find you
    twin nightboats
    on the River Dream

    still: kohl eyes, seek—

    tagged:

    , , ,

    filed under:

    2 comments on shards, ii

    To like, click comments or:

    shards, ii

  • shards, i

    michael raven

    In singsong:

    don't dare imagine
    don't dare dream
    don't dare be strange,
    dirty or obscene

    tagged:

    , ,

    filed under:

    10 comments on shards, i

    To like, click comments or:

    shards, i

  • thank you

    michael raven

    I know that my writing is not mainstream, regardless of it being “good” or “bad”. Thank you for reading it, even if it is rough around the edges and not like the other writing you read, or even prefer.

    I know I get fixated on certain topics. My writing is typically more “iterative” than “finished”. Thank you for putting up with the recurring dream when you visit this site.

    There are days I hesitate to call myself a writer. I scribble down doggerel mostly in the manner of wordplay. I’m not sure I want to be known as a “writer”. It seems self-inflating and conceited to continue to do so. Perhaps I will stop. Thank you for enduring my conceit.

    What I want to do is to stop making sense and become like the whiskey drunk in the back of the wagon, jolting along and forgetting to fall when the wheel hits a large rock and, instead, glides boneless to the road to slumber with a face full of mud and puddle — no broken bones or bruises, wearing only a broad smile as he recalls making love under the cherry blossoms tumbling from the sky. Thank you for putting up with my habit of trying to make sense.

    What was your name dancing the summer seed on the jasmine breeze? I caught it for a moment, but then you turned away. Thank you for that breath of mountain sigh, though the sounds were strange and filled me of longing.

    I ask to be more fox, and less of thorn. Thank you.

    tagged:

    filed under:

    To like, click comments or:

    thank you

  • Campfire Sessions — 03aug26

    michael raven

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    Seeking new places to set campfires within the wode. The old ones leave the ashes cold even where they gather and that is a sign I am meant to move on. And so I pass their hollows and dream deeper and older to ancient wooden trails where even the night finds it hard to take a hold. Into the before, when even the old ones had yet to be born.

    It is Crow and Ash and Stone. Mountain waters gather in pools that go deep on the forever and the raindrops find their way to this dismal home. Water always finds a way, for it is married to Stone.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    , , , ,

    filed under:

    5 comments on Campfire Sessions — 03aug26

    To like, click comments or:

    Campfire Sessions — 03aug26

  • tall naked trees

    michael raven 

    dead souls, we
    wraith through
    tall naked trees
    under winter iron
    to our cold fires
    waiting

    someone whispers
    the name you wore
    before you were born

    perhaps, even,
    it was i

    recall, rejoin these
    dead souls, we
    that may seek again
    as we wraith through
    winter's tall naked
    trees

    tagged:

    , ,

    filed under:

    6 comments on tall naked trees

    To like, click comments or:

    tall naked trees

  • listen

    michael raven 

    listen:

    were it that you could
    hear these bones
    being etched in
    scrimshaw behind
    my age-cured flesh

    what might you see
    if you could hear?

    a great horned owl
    scrying mantic in
    the deepening night?

    peat bog perfume
    rising from what shadows
    are left to remain?

    what peels bark
    behind blackthorn?

    i gather flint
    in scarred hands
    along with ash and
    charcoal black
    to scratch louder
    runes anew

    tagged:

    ,

    filed under:

    5 comments on listen

    To like, click comments or:

    listen

  • Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26

    michael raven

    Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26

    It’s been just over a week since our two new family members joined us and I really wish I could say that we were all a big old blended family of felines but — as the fates would often have it — it was not meant to be. Not yet anyway.

    While the current trend of kitten introduction is to slow-walk it over a period of weeks, I had honestly planned for a weekend (plus or minus a few days), let a little fur fly and paws catch air as the older cats got used to the idea of having new housemates. The band-aid method. I assume the sooner they go through the motions, the better and the quicker everyone will acclimate.

    But… well… there was a slight issue with that.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    , , , , ,

    filed under:

    18 comments on Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26

    To like, click comments or:

    Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26

  • the hanging man

    michael raven 

    it is passing strange
    how a turn of word
    tugs at puppet strings
    whereas an elegant mask
    might only hang

    it is always the
    whispered words
    with the most draw
    as we dance at
    the edge of a tether
    aching for more

    tagged:

    ,

    filed under:

    5 comments on the hanging man

    To like, click comments or:

    the hanging man

  • mortal tethers

    michael raven 

    tonight, i give over
    surrender to loam & peat
    let mycelium feed while
    slumbering between
    bile & bog, briar & weed
    betwixt both thorn & stone

    slipping deeper,
    even mortal tethers
    may break

    tagged:

    , ,

    filed under:

    2 comments on mortal tethers

    To like, click comments or:

    mortal tethers