• Moon

    michael raven

    [Originally posted on sceadugenga.com, September 8, 2020]

    She painted the sky with stars, hands aglow with the dust of aeons.

    “It’s the best medium for art, really,” she insisted, though the Raven didn’t need convincing. He’d played a bit with light himself after it burned him black. Dangerous, absolutely. But there was nothing quite like stardust for conveying vast, open space, nothing that came close.

    He nodded and winked while deciding what the next trick he might play on her brother, Wolf.

    She returned the wink. “Here’s an idea that might help…” she started.

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • Silver

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, October 18, 2020]

    Lucas heard the feral dogs before he saw them. They were whining in frustration, growling and intermittently barking as if doing all of these things would somehow get their quarry to acquiesce and come out from whatever hidey-hole they were in and subject themselves to being made dinner. Even pigeons, largely lacking a sense of self-preservation even now, when there were no people to cater to lazy feeding habits by tossing out breadcrumbs, wouldn’t succumb to such tactics. Yet, the dogs carried on barking, whining and growling in their denial of “things as they are”.

    Lucas hadn’t had a very high opinion of dogs before the fall of civilization and this, he felt, was a perfect example of why he needn’t bother to change his opinion to be more generous in his opinion of them.

    (more…)

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  • painted hearts

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, October 24, 2020]

    statues in the winter garden
    crying stone tears
    the memory of summerland
    painted on their hearts

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • tattoo

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, October 19, 2020]

     the october country 
    is where all the sad
    middle-aged men go —
    wondering just
    which journey brought
    them to this place
    wearing a teardrop frozen,
    tattooed in the corner of
    their eye

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • Albert Camus quote

    michael raven

    Life continues, and some mornings, weary of the noise, discouraged by the prospect of the interminable work to keep after, sickened also by the madness of the world that leaps at you from the newspaper, finally convinced that I will not be equal to it and that I will disappoint everyone — all I want to do is sit down and wait for evening. This is what I feel like, and sometimes I yield to it.

    — Albert Camus, “Letter to P.B.” in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)

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  • flower angst

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, September 1, 2020]

    9mm hip check
    the window voyeur 
    stutter-shifts to street talking
    street walking
    prey seeking looks away
    jazzy mop
    hip hop
    hollow-tip sway

    coffee calls
    shifting walls
    dancing on razor's edge
    on broken glass and
    checks his hip again

    shuffle home
    close the world
    carving words in skin

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • of velvet and lace

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, September 7, 2020]

    death rattle leaves
    shuffle underfoot
    a touch of the
    samhain season &
    the japanese whispers
    of a secret oktober

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • words

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com on August 29, 2020;
    modified September 1, 2026]

    denise, with black & sick-green
    painted nails, rat's nest siouxsie hair
    hefted each of her knit long sleeves
    showed me her arms, each
    etched with words:

    "MAGGOT"
    "WHORE"
    "TRAMP"
    "GROTESQUE"

    in block letters, thinking
    to scare me away
    "i'm ugly, on medication &
    i cut myself.
    see? doesn't that scare you?"
    expecting me to make excuses
    as to why i had to leave

    i smiled sadly, 
    not sure how to tell her
    i'd share her pain,
    if only she'd let me,
    having carried the burden
    of my own

    she drifted away before i might reply,
    an ophelia in the weeds

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • only regrets

    michael raven

    [originally posted on sceadugenga.com, September 25, 2020]

    wineglass lipstick kiss
    cigarettes not mine
    the traces left behind

    drunk on her kiss
    "yes", on my lips
    i ached to acquiesce
    but
    haunted by
    my own judas --
    i could never do the same
    to someone i knew

    and so "i can't"
    came out instead...

    she left angry,
    and i was left
    embracing only regrets

    Note: I am taking a short break from posting new material and am tossing out a few older pieces as explained here and here. Thanks for your continuing support.

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  • Converting blog to .md (.txt)

    michael raven

    Vibe coding is the best part of AI, really.

    There are times that I just want a simple script. Something useful to do something absolutely stupid-simple except that I don’t have the coding skills or the knowledge on which commands will get me what I want.

    Some of the WordPress plugins I did for my gothic western were a bit more complex, but in no way would justify paying someone $10 annually for a subscription to “not quite do what I wanted it to do, but it was good enough for my needs” kind of thing. AI wrote those plugins in minutes flat for nothing.

    I have no intention of taking work away from real coders, but having something to covert my old blog .xml files from sceadugenga.com (2019-2025) into a readable (or even printable) is not stealing money from anyone. It’s something that some simple coding can do, and more efficiently than both free and paid options out there offer.

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