Category: writing

  • casting runes — 10mar26

    sowilo
    snowflake but
    climbing up
    shadows slink
    to scheme away
    whiling until
    after the fall

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

    Today’s rune is sowilo, the sun. Sowilo is the source of enlightenment, for lighting the way and illumination. It is also called the “icebreaker” and gives power to an “attack”, ensuring success and/or prosperity. This rune also represents hope, the light at the end of a long darkness.

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

  • Case File #8: Dredging Up Leads

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Case File #8: Dredging Up Leads

    This is a serialized story. Start with Case File #1 here.

    “So,” Cookie said, sliding a plate of fries onto the table. “You gonna tell me why a walking statue wants to turn you into a paperweight?”

    I grabbed the bottle of ketchup and gave the bottom a hard whack before remembering my burned fingers and it sent a nasty jolt of pain, a little deadly dagger that traced a line from my palm to my elbow. I considered asking Cookie to do the honors when I saw the cheap, red sludge escape its glass prison and splurt onto the chipped ceramic plate. A generous third of the bottle, enough to coat the next helping of grease without having to risk the razorblades of agony shredding my arm.

    (more…)

  • he fool calls

    he fool calls crow
    in pale wood, black stone
    he red calls ghost
    from the south to the north

    he road calls spirit
    to her medicine ride train
    he wing calls kindred
    to carry night skies again

  • casting runes — 09mar26

    hagalaz
    crack seed pellet
    crystal kissed
    side-step, slipstream
    burning on within

    weary of voices ghost

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

    Today’s rune is hagalaz, which has a core meaning of “hail”, which was associated with potential, transformation, renewal and change; hail is imagined a seed from which change will arise. Hagalaz is also seen as representative of things beyond our control: a clash between fire and ice.

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

  • Case File #7: Teeth Are Rent

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Case File #7: Teeth Are Rent

    This is a serialized story. Start with Case File #1 here.

    Gallow didn’t bother to try to grab me, he just extended the stasis field in my direction. As my rear foot left the parapet, the air in the middle of the alley thickened into a cold, invisible molasses. My momentum died a drawn-out, gasping death; its final rattle was the only fast thing about my rain-drenched descent. I wasn’t falling; I was drifting. My arc flattened out, the cafe’s rooftop now a cruel joke I was destined to miss. Instead, I was going to hang there, a suspended fool in the ceaseless drizzle, until the Foundry’s enforcer reached out and plucked me from the sky like a rotten apple from a tree.

    (more…)

  • brokework

    he mad dog barked at
    walls drawing down
    he jaw chomped hard
    at cage and at leash

    with hatpin hands
    and neck rust screech
    a brokework heart
    and tinsel teeth

    dragging behind loathing
    in razor wire, unsure
    which self to throw
    to mists from peak

  • casting runes — 07mar26

    uruz
    iron pierced these & thistle,
    in nettle & thunderhead

    dredge of horn furrows
    over open & naked hand

    lost teardrops
    lightning shatters sky

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

    Today’s rune is uruz. The rune is named after the now-extinct aurochs, a wild ox and has become associated with standing up to challenges, having both confidence and courage, stubborn tenacity, and boundless strength and health. Uruz is alternately associated with the more raw elements which include rain, primordial potential, and the slag/dross cast away during the making of iron.

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

  • Case File #6: Between a Gallow and a Hard Place

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Case File #6: Between a Gallow and a Hard Place

    This is a serialized story. Start with Case File #1 here.

    I pushed the door open.

    The office was exactly as I’d left it, only wrong. The air was thick, like cheap cigarette smoke, and the silence was heavy enough to cast a shadow. The ceiling fan was frozen in mid-spin, a broken promise of a breeze. A water droplet hung suspended in the air, halfway between the scarred ceiling tile and my rust-stained bucket. The dust motes in the shaft of street light weren’t dancing; they were stuck in place like insects in amber — a still-life of a dead moment.

    And sitting in my client chair, looking like a statue carved out of gray meat and bad intentions, was a man in a rubberized trench coat. He didn’t breathe. He didn’t blink. He was just a shape in the gloom, a problem I hadn’t ordered.

    (more…)

  • long hours

    no one hears pain
    grind teeth clutch ache 
    bone taste of dry leaf
    of die want long hours 

    knives drive nine
    slice tendon night
    sleepless sleepless razor
    of die want long hours

  • casting runes — 05mar25

    dagaz
    i seek you in umbra
    slipping 'twixt & 'tween
    between bone & meat
    there, in the hollows
    where twin shadows meet

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

    Today’s rune is dagaz, which has been translated as “daybreak”, that transitional moment between night and day. By extension, it might also be interpreted as “twilight” and is representative of liminality, transformation, the space between worlds, and suggests walking in both the material world and otherworld.

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