these steel cut shores
carved in black sand
whisper hush of tides
and heavy of storms.
'black rain comes.'
more slight than whisper,
more ragged than thorn.
hand grasps of hand,
lingers as wraiths
for which are known.
shards, iv
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shards, iv
Dead Letter Office [fragment]
I started this a while back for Jolene Rice’s story prompts and never got around to finishing it. This particular list included: a key that nobody else has, a bumper sticker offers excellent advice, a slow poke, and an oddities collector.
This time, I was going to eschew my normal fantasy/noir/horror inclinations and lean fairly straight, non-genre storytelling. I do that on occasion. When I do, chances are there are still hints of some kinds of odd in the tale, but the world’s chocked full of odd kinds of tales.
Anyway, it seemed a shame to let a not-terrible beginning to a story molder in a draft folder, so I decided to share it in the story’s unfinished state.
All apologies offered in advance.
Bonus points if you can figure out the inspiration which informs the tone of the planned story.
There was a traffic jam on the kudzu-lined gravel road leading into Gideon. There were already at least three cars lined up behind whatever was obstructing the road around the canopy of vines hanging down from telephone wires and what-all the greenery could find for support to cling to.
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Dead Letter Office [fragment]
casting runes — 05aug26
ehwaz sitting statue still with sunken hollows after crows came for eyes— unmoving even still stepping over cooling ashes following night songs leaving the worn behind
A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.
Today’s rune is ehwaz, which has a core meaning of “horse”. A horse is often associated with journeys, travel and movement. By extension, it also implies symbiosis with another living creature or fylgja (guardian spirit), and the rune is associated with loyalty or trust. Any undertaken journey may be spatial, emotional or spiritual.
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 — 05aug26
shards, iii
Like red hot iron, this is best swallowed whole:
these obsidian blades
of semicolon days
where minutes languid
drag, reeking of
sour sweat & saudade
scant souls slendering
silent tombstones
sighing under
a sickle moonTo like, click comments or:
shards, iii
Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26
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.
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Half-Penny Thoughts — 05aug26
shards, ii
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—To like, click comments or:
shards, ii
thank you
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.
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thank you
Campfire Sessions — 03aug26
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.
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Campfire Sessions — 03aug26
tall naked trees
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
treesTo like, click comments or:
tall naked trees
