Category: writing

  • the hanging man

    it is passing strange
    how a turn of word
    tugs at puppet strings
    whereas an elegant mask
    might only hang

    it is always the
    whispered words
    with the most draw
    as we dance at
    the edge of a tether
    aching for more

  • mortal tethers

    tonight, i give over
    surrender to loam & peat
    let mycelium feed while
    slumbering between
    bile & bog, briar & weed
    betwixt both thorn & stone

    slipping deeper,
    even mortal tethers
    may break

  • nothings

    everything given
    under foxfire & green
    to bramble gate thorns
    into the ghost of me
    leaving behind Nothing
    no longer even dream

  • may i comply

    I walked through crowds to get there, the far end of the bookstore only to have one person tie me with metal, the other to tie me with promises of dream — a waterfall crashing laid claim to tether. They argued in pitted knives and sharper stares and with a sigh, I waded against the current flowing out behind them as they wandered the stacks full of shouting and yell.

    I sought to slip away and couldn’t see a path until you, fey and slight, stepped along the twilight edge with feet but bare, a slip of shadow in the light as the two [remember the two?] argued on ahead. Sidestepping, you pressed your cheek to mine and promised an escape in exchange for a kiss in the growing night.

    Foolish perhaps, but may I comply said I and kissed those lips pale and wan. You call that a kiss? asked you with a smile. That’s hardly a kiss worth an exchange on escape.

    I leaned, did I, and leaned full into lips, stealing from you a bit of a sigh. Much better, you exclaimed and rolled in thunder by way of a reply. We fell as the rain leaving gold and falls in the behind as we rivered to loam — which was all too happy to drink us inside.

    Stay, you said and May I comply, said I.

    Until even the stones themselves might die.

  • evermore

    'could i, a slip between cracks
    would i find to the narrows'

    'go sleeping on those hills,'
    she suggested, offered, obliged
    the moorlands her finger drew

    'lichened stone to rest a head;
    a blanket of peat to cover you
    and heather to tincture your sleep'

    i did as bid, grew antlers thorned
    as i slumber a top that tor
    i fell betwixt place and moor
    having given self to evermore

  • call in Storm

    feral you, on petite, lithe and narrow
    dancing on the edge of betweens
    with stolen kisses on slender promise
    while others argue, deaf to your muse
    bound within the must and dust of
    parchment giants lining every room

    a wink, a smile, and a theft once more
    then,
    we raise twin hands, call in Storm

  • Forfeit

    Here’s another short bit of fiction based on writing prompts from Jolene Rice. They are the following four items with the only rule being that you cannot kill off your main character

    1. attacked by squirrels
    2. what nobody wants to talk about
    3. mascot for a professional team
    4. animal psychic

    Apologies offered in advance.

    I do lost cats, mostly. Colic in horses if the vet’s backed up. Twice a year somebody’s parrot stops talking and I sit with it for an hour and tell the family what they already know, which is that the parrot wishes they would ask for more than “Polly wants a cracker.” One, in particular, had a secret habit of shouting “Fucking hell!” whenever the house was empty, it told me. Practiced it all day long, most days, by his reckoning.

    (more…)

  • three o’clock moon

    she ghosted me through
    with otherside push
    and we danced 
    how we danced 
    all bone and lithe
    under the three o'clock
    moon 

    dead man's bells singing
    as she fell to arms weeping
    laughter staining corners 
    of eyes

    "what will you do? 
    what do you say?"

    "yes, i agree," replied i
    and slept on the mound
    given myself over...

  • bog bodies

    why phantom chasing
    through time's forest mists --
    an echoed tether stretched taut?

    hush now, and forget
    the voices are will o' wisps
    drawing to thorny bramble 
    tangled in foxfire's decay

    leave those bog bodies to lay
    reunions come soon enough

  • cautionary tales

    if my curses frighten
    it is only because
    they are wellearned

    cast a bit of salt
    and hold your poppet
    close and tight tonight

    morning will surely come
    as it must, mustn't it? 
    oh, my lovey love...