Author: michael raven

  • The Windup Girl

    I’m just finishing up a “biopunk” dystopian bit of scifi, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I’ve been meaning to get around to reading it for several years now under the false premise that I believed it to be something more steampunk in flavor. I keep thinking that steampunk as a subgenre really holds a lot of promise, but I must keep finding the clinkers to read, or that thinking is flawed in some way. I’ve never found a steampunk novel that has actually held up to that promise, which makes me slightly sad.

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  • tossing a rune — 02oct25

    ansuz
    a turning away
    with one eye blind
    but some things
    cannot be unseen

    a heavy sigh
    for the dead & dying—
    a heartache but
    for all the reaping

    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.

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

  • night skin you, day skin you

    night skin you, day skin you

    a dream of
    night skin you & day skin you
    crawling from the barrows
    to give to hold, drinking you in
    before the everblind

    leave me to slumber at
    the foot of your altar
    with peekaboo sunshine
    warming the empty of eye
    let this mantic fade from view

    a nightmare of
    night skin you & day skin you
    crawling from make-dust
    from the depths of our youth

  • first kiss

    [response]

    stone raven black
    her slow hand turns
    on the moon
    in lace and silhouette
    waiting on dusk
    to kiss me
    a bridge closer home,
    ever to her side

    [call]

    Laughing into the fire
    Is it always like this?
    Flesh and blood and the first kiss
    The first colors, the first kiss

    ~ Siamese Twins

  • digging in the middens

    I am having a bit of a dry spell when it comes to creative writing, which is neither unusual or much of a bother.

    When the desert decides to take up residence in my head, I sometimes power through and other times I find “less creative” ways to keep writing (like this post). I don’t let it bother me when the ideas go fooom and I am left with a cranium filled mostly with fluff. But I do keep writing when that happens because I invariably discover something I want to write about as I am “just writing”.

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  • stupid words

    sometimes
    it is all just shite
    and there's nothing
    to be done but write
    every stupid word you think

    t'hell with poetry prose
    give them a bop on the nose
    and run away run away
    run away 'til you fall
    off the cliff of egocide

    and sometimes
    what you write is still
    nothing but shite
    and a bruised ego
    is all that's left for show...

    runawayrunawayrun

  • riders

    come the riders of the storm
    with their galleons and steel
    with their spinning and yearning
    to rip down gossamer veils, all

    winds tearing through and calling
    for to take up the night's ride
    here comes the deadliest season
    lock your doors against that cry

  • letters

    having earned
    my place in oblivion
    i fold up my dreams
    with their creases
    and worn out folds
    faded blue lines and
    penciled words
    and send them
    to those swift waters
    running under
    a creaking old bridge

  • Half-penny thoughts — 29sep25

    I made it to my fourth crochet row on a non-project (no goal other than getting more comfortable with crochet) before everything got really ugly and went terribly wrong. That’s progress beyond just beyond getting a foundation row more than five loops long. I won’t be crocheting any afghans soon, but it is progress.

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  • casting runes — 29sep25

    ingwaz
    holding hands, casting winks
    we stepped aboard
    the northbound rail
    the car was crowded, yet
    not everyone's destination
    was so far as ours:
    under the turquoise veil

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

    Today’s rune is ingwaz, a rune named after the god Ing or Freyr. It is representative of a channeled energy or transformational process. It is also be seen as the male component of life, and therefore a symbol of sexual passions and the contributed “seed” of life (and, therefore, an aspect of one’s ancestral ørlǫg, or fate/destiny). Some interpretations conceive the rune as a symbol of darkness, solitude or dreaming.

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