Author: michael raven

  • lady waiting

    we follow the same
    wading both blood
    & blades for a glimpse
    of the lady waiting
    at the end of the glade
    & to receive her nightkiss

  • Half-penny Thoughts — 27oct25

    As I am reading The Chronicles of the Black Company, a blurb on the back struck me as being something of an important statement when it comes to stories and how they are written.

    “With the Black Company series Glen Cook single-handedly changed the face of fantasy—something a lot of people didn’t notice and maybe still don’t. He brought the story down to a human level, dispensing with the cliché archetypes of princes, kings, and evil sorcerers. Reading his stuff was like reading Vietnam War fiction on peyote.” [emphasis mine]

    – Steven Erikson, author of the series: Malazan Book of the Fallen.

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  • hole

    dusk pours out of me
    i am that lost hour
    a brittle bone heart
    carved in passing as
    they drift to the next
    hole in the sky,
    a stone before the lake

  • ephemera

    these words and thoughts --
    naught but cherry blossoms
    drifting downstream

  • Bookhaunting and a little flirter

    Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

    Yesterday, I took the twins out shopping for used books. Even if they don’t find something that captures their fancy, they still enjoy the act of seeking for hidden treasures. And, while I try to keep engaged with these young tween women, there are very few activities that we can agree on being exclusively in the realm of “fun” to do together. Treasure hunting for books is one of them.

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  • maturity, maybe

    letting go
    thirty years ago
    was the best thing
    as much as it saddens
    me to admit so

  • Cosmology

    I won’t go too deep down the rabbit hole here, but I’ve made it no secret that I have an interest in what I call “The Old Ways”. While no one knows for certain what practices existed in the neolithic, preagricultural period of history, I think there are some things that appear to be universal when observing or investigating nomadic peoples closer to the modern age and we can draw some conclusions based on that in conjunction with what we can tease out about a few thousand years back.

    The records of what was written contemporaneously or kept alive through oral tradition, however biased those records might be, sometimes point to a past that existed before those events were recorded.

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  • casting runes — 24oct25

    fehu
    fox fire, raven coal
    first flurries pale
    i offer crimson now
    to keep all relations, mine
    both safe and hale

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is fehu, which has a core meaning of “cattle” or a more generalized “livestock”, which was a representation of personal wealth or earned prosperity. Sometimes luck played a role. Wealth and prosperity was valued, but was looked down upon when material accumulation appeared to be excessive, greedy, miserly or turned to hoarding, especially when those around you were lacking.

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

  • rings

    Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
    drained, i pour inside
    to sit within my pain
    —don't speak
    everything runs over
    and i cannot drink
    another drop

    instead, arthritic fingers chase
    wet rings on the hard

  • wilderness

    come the sluagh nights soonly
    come they baying at your door
    sickle scythe under nightmoon
    a'reaving long before the dawn