• casting runes — 07feb26

    michael raven

    ansuz
    finding myself at ash
    i can ride branches
    i can ride roots
    i can also sit just so
    the call comes of stone
    and of deep, so
    it's there my spirit
    will dwell

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is ansuz, which has a core meaning “a god” (intended to be Odin), “mouth” or “breath”. Odin is representative of many, many things… in this case, ansuz is most representative of the mouth/breath (speech) that gives life to poetry, magic, song, language, and spirit — largely inseparable in the Viking worldview — and Odin is considered the supreme master of these intertwined concepts. By way of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the rune is named æsc, which is translated to “ash”, a tree associated with Odin and is representative of resilience and strength.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

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    casting runes — 07feb26

  • Dead zone — flash fiction

    michael raven

    See my notes in this post about the prompted flash fiction pieces on this site about personal drivers and rules I use while writing them.

    Plot Elements to Include (all prompts and genre randomly suggested by Gemini AI):

    • The Object: A heavy, brass-bound radio that doesn’t receive signals from this decade.
    • The Setting: A city perpetually covered in coal-dust fog where sound is regulated by the government.
    • The Conflict: The protagonist discovers a “dead zone” where the fog clears, revealing a sky that hasn’t been seen in fifty years.

    Genre: Dieselpunk / Alt History

    “Gimme your ETA for finishing Delta sector baffler maintenance, Zed-Ought-Three-Stroke-Seven-Ex. We’ve got a situation in Epsilon and you’re needed immediately. Dispatch over.”

    Cinder let dispatch stew for a few moments before responding. She’d been done fixing the bafflers ten minutes ago but had quickly learned that being too much of a go-getter in City Maintenance just go-got you more thankless tasks and a fistful of disgruntled coworkers to boot. No one liked a brownnoser, including the bosses because then they had to find more make-work for you and explain to their superiors why that was the case. And if their superiors thought there were inefficiencies in the system, they would reduce the workforce to account for those inefficiencies, keeping only the overachievers, who would then be saddled with more work than they could handle on their own. Let no good deed go unpunished was the unofficial motto of the dome maintenance worker.

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    Dead zone — flash fiction

  • A few notes about stories & prompts

    michael raven

    Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

    As I mentioned a few days ago, I am going to try to increase my output of short fiction on the site to stretch out those muscles in that part of my brain which have atrophied somewhat in the past few years.

    I feel that I should provide some disclosures before publishing many more stories and to make clear what my personal rules are, and to set expectations about what you see in the coming days. Rather than post a few disclaimers for every story, I thought I’d point to this post. It is intended to be a living document and I will modify it as needed to clarify or correct its contents.

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    A few notes about stories & prompts

  • casting runes — 06jan25

    michael raven

    dagaz
    quiet on the borderlands
    just wind singing fences
    pushing puddles melted snow
    waiting wolves ache to break free

    A rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.

    Today’s rune is dagaz, which has been translated as “daybreak”, that transitional moment between night and day. By extension, it might also be interpreted as “twilight” and is representative of liminality, transformation, the space between worlds, and suggests walking in both the material world and otherworld.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

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    casting runes — 06jan25

  • Half-penny thoughts — 05feb26

    michael raven

    I am probably the only person in the world annoyed with this, but the rampant use of acronyms like O.G. (“original gangster”) for everything and anyone, and G.O.A.T. (“greatest of all time”) bugs me in ways that I can’t express.

    Under current usage, someone can apply O.G. to Bob Dylan for his crossover folk/rock music. And there are bound to be people who are certain he is the G.O.A.T.

    The first (O.G.) was the headscratcher when my eldest used it in reference to the post-punk band Joy Division (active 1976-1980). Having grown up in a neighborhood where O.G. meant something entirely different, I made a scrunched up face to let her know that I was almighty confused by what she had said. “Echo and the Bunnymen” was another band that she labeled O.G.

    Now, I’m lame and out of touch, but I was trying to understand just how Joy Division were original gangsters… She then informs me as to the current meaning, which is applied to when what most people I know will think “old school” will work just fine. The Cure? O.G. goth? Wut?

    Don’t get me started as to how silly “greatest of all time” sounds when you critically think about it. Before, now and forever? Really? Will you even remember the person you called a GOAT in three years? And yes, it is bandied about with flash-in-the-pan personalities even more than long-standing talent of all kinds.

    Am I just an old fuddy-duddy? Or do you find some of these things to be just outright silly (“SIXSEVEN!”)? Are there slang quirks that bother you? Do you really hate it when I say “Groovy, man”? Do I need to get to hepcat and quit being so square?

    Please note: I am not mortally offended by any these things, but they do seem quite silly and absurd in terms of slang developments over the years. Keep comments, should you have any, lighthearted and fun.

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    Half-penny thoughts — 05feb26