ravensweald

Reunion
30Jun26 | 10.33 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260630.1033
Participating in Jolene’s (Chico’s Mom) prompts where the only real rule is that you can’t kill off the main character. Oh, and use the four prompts provided:
1. not so Good Samaritan
2. vampire
3. reunited
4. pills
Here is my humble offering below.
Vladimir opened the heavy wooden door on the third knock, as though he’d been expecting this all along. Which, of course, he had been — for eleven years.
“Aldric.” With warmth, arms outstretched. That slight lisp that came with elongated canines. “Come in, come in. You’ll catch your death.”
(more…)
tagged:
flash fiction, jolene rice prompt, prompts
filed under:
fiction
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Reunion
Gimme Some Truth (cover) | The Wonder Stuff
29Jun26 | 14.28 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260629.1428
“I’m not a Beatles fan, but I am a John Lennon fan.”
```
I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending,
mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth, now

I've had enough of watching scenes
With schizophrenic, egocentric,
paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth, now
Just gimme me some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
son of Tricky Dicky
Is going to Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope
```
Amazing, isn’t it, how topical this song is 50 years later?
Stuffies doing their cover of the Lennon song.
That song was always a blast to busk in downtown Minneapolis around 1989.
Did I mention I occasionally did “air guitar performances” while singing (sic) with an empty guitar case? I took great efforts to carefully put the “guitar” back into the case when I was done with my performance.
Okay, singing was probably a bit strong of a word to use here. You get the idear tho’, right?
tagged:
cover songs, music
filed under:
Towards the Within
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Gimme Some Truth (cover) | The Wonder Stuff
Hei, skogkatter • 29jun26
29Jun26 | 13.12 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260629.1312
If I have a wee bit of advice to breeders of any type of pet, it is:
There is no such thing as too many photos for the expectant family.
For some weirdos like me, there is no such thing as too much data either — although I have done a very good job of not asking anyone to fulfill my weird data desires/needs (weights, measurements, food types and sources).
We finally got on the radar and received some new pictures of the boys (a bit blurry when they are in motion because of the phone’s camera and lighting quality).
(more…)
tagged:
floof, hei skogkatter, kittens, norsk skogkatt, Norwegian Forest Cat, skogkatt
filed under:
Grendel and Grímnir
16 comments on Hei, skogkatter • 29jun26
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Hei, skogkatter • 29jun26
All that remain
28Jun26 | 20.10 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260628.2010
There are times that there is only empty. You could not understand.
Everything ash. Everything dust. You could not understand.
I am weary of silence, but there is no mouth with which to speak to the missing ears which could never hear. You could not understand.
Rivers run my blood in tears from void for eyes, screaming blind. You could not understand.
This is a limbo, something you could never understand.
Piercing pinions stretched for all the night. You could not understand.
That I miss your lips and their wine… You could not understand.
Ribbons are all that remain.
tagged:
melancholia
filed under:
prose
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All that remain
Zombie Love | Morticia
28Jun26 | 18.32 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260628.1832
```
We can live for eternity
We can live for eternity tonight

Dress of black, face of white
Lips of red, what a frightening sight
Are you ready to try zombie love?
Zombie love
```
Back in the peak of my 80s “goth” phase, there was an admission I was willing to make — should anyone ask or care to enquire. It was no grand secret:
I did not think that the subculture should be taken too terribly serious.
(more…)
tagged:
campy music, Minneapolis Music in the 80s, morticia, old school goth
filed under:
Towards the Within
6 comments on Zombie Love | Morticia
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Zombie Love | Morticia

c: 260628.1524

we wore our hearts
   in sticker on
      polyester sleeve
while whale bone
   held us to north
      and nightfall

         — waiting
for ghost-trees
   to give over and
      bring blood home
cellophane crackling
   under our feet of
      cruel winters

ashen, for that is
   how we lost our
      home

tagged:

betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding

filed under:

poetry

4 comments

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ashen

steel skies stolen

28Jun26 | 08.11 CDT

michael raven

c: 260628.0811

there are days
i wish it would just
rain & rain & rain
wash everything away
down the drains &
carry us to a place
where we could
finally meet again
you could say, “hey” &
i could say, “hi” &
though we’ve never met
we could be friends
or maybe lovers
like we were before
we fell out of dream

our steel skies stolen,
some days
i wish it would just
rain.

tagged:

betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding

filed under:

poetry

9 comments

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steel skies stolen

of berry and elder

27Jun26 | 20.41 CDT

michael raven

c: 260627.2041

of berry red and elder
i press my blood there
a thumbprint between
eye and dusk shadow
beauty as naked is

forgive this romance—

your night drawn in
fingerbones alone
i kiss you when you
dare to look away;
beat your heart closer.

i know i know
these are weary ways
to cast in cold
the frost alone

come now,
lead us walk
rose stones to
water waiting...

tagged:

betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding

filed under:

poetry

2 comments

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of berry and elder

over graves tonight
26Jun26 | 16.21 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260626.1621
```
with deadwood limbs 
and ash grey heart
we sing scrimshaw
over graves tonight
daring winter winds
of ripping breath away

a rime of braided rope
ever taut and untamed
salt my lips in evensong
and stolen night away
```
tagged:
betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding
filed under:
poetry
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over graves tonight
Dares
26Jun26 | 07.55 CDT
© 2026
michael raven
c: 260626.0755
I feel I am crossing liminal spaces of late — between dusk and shadow, slipping between night and day.
I’m not sure if it is the hours, or maybe it is these days. But there is a persistent tug of flux, a drawing in and release. I grow disinterested in the machinations of the embrace of doing things the same way day by day. It seems much more interesting to drift and fade, and it is a mistake of mine to expect my object to all subjects to feel the same.
Snip. Snip. Snip. A painfully slow arcade of cutting the linen laid bare before me, watching with wry, droll amusement at times as supporting threads give way to unraveled snapping instead of waiting for Atropos to come by and give a release clean.
Into the mists, then. Who dares follow? Who dares dream?
Fox cries razor through white, quickly filled in. Crows announce the edges of dark with cacophonic chatter as they discuss the next and the next and the—
Lost, who dares remain unfound?
tagged:
betwixt and between, rewilding
filed under:
prose
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Dares