strange days when a fiction
confirms a reality and
stones become doors in
the heather on the heath
and ravens give to crows
on the edge of bedsheets
there is not-song in head
and not-fire between
and everything's burning
at the crux of the seams
blink becomes stutter
we give fat, we give bone
we skin give to we
Category: writing
stones become doors
Episode 4: Elsewhen, Part 1
Vengeance, My Heart is a work of serialized fiction. Jump to key story links to read earlier content.
It was with an explosive frantic fluttering that the quail broke from the scrub, barely registered before the gun’s thunder broke the twilight calm, before any thought of the bird came to the fore.
Only after the bird had dropped to the twisting shadows of the mesa, had the stranger known she had made a kill. There was no magic in the act, although it might have seemed so had anyone witnessed the event.
(more…)box
too simple for words, and so
i point towards the moon
before gathering my heart
folded into ink-etched bone and
send it in a ribboned box
to herwear my eyes blind
we've the path of ashes
bringing forth in reds & golds
burning october in our summer
etching shard ice in dreams
soon i will shift under
perhaps you bone stay—
to the elsewhen all go
in the eventual
you will wear my eyes blind
slipping to burning octoberentanglements
no more fingers
outstretched because
we can see our
only use is to please
some illusion of touch
arthritic entanglements
become slender thorns
pressed under tender
skinEpisode 3: What Walks On, Part 4
Vengeance, My Heart is a work of serialized fiction. Jump to key story links to read earlier content.
As she made her way to where the crow perched, it was clear that Fallow was not the only equine casualty of the shootout. One other lay dead on the outrider’s side of the camp and the other two had panicked at the noise. The stranger could see the silhouette of one against the backdrop of the last of the failing light. It was looking back at camp, but seemed disinterested in returning. Of the other horse, there was no trace.
Dee was resting her back against the base of some mesquite once the stranger found her. She was pressing one hand firmly against her thigh, blood staining her fingers dark to match the growing shadows. Her other hand rested near the holster without quite reaching it. Her gun was not in the holster and it took the stranger a moment before she spotted the revolver in the gloaming, left almost under the wain.
(more…)VMH Progress Report — 18apr26
I’ve been steadily jabbing at the keyboard for Vengeance, My Heart, this serial gothic western (/not-western) fantasy bit of writing some of you have been kind enough to read. Thanks go out to you who have. Your readership and comments are much appreciated.
As of last night, I surpassed the wordcount of my recent return to writing serialized fiction, a bit of occult noir that is part of the Vivian Locke world, which I may or may not return to — I haven’t decided yet, as my head is entirely in this world right at the moment. The posts haven’t quite caught up with the written wordcount, but that’s by design. It gives me a chance to go back and fix continuity issues (usually only a sentence, maybe as little as a change in a single word), something I neglected to anticipate when I first started writing serial fiction in 2001, which resulted in an insurmountable hurdle at the time for a truly rotten story.
(more…)Episode 3: What Walks On, Part 3
Vengeance, My Heart is a work of serialized fiction. Jump to key story links to read earlier content.
Dee turned to the stranger and nodded to the gun at her hip.
“That’s a fine bit of hardware you’re carrying around,” she said. “Old. The kind that means something. They don’t make them like that anymore.” She tilted her head and took a sip from her flask. “Lone woman on the road, carrying a piece like that around… Eventually somebody’s gonna make you an offer on it.”
She took another nod at the flask, spit into the fire and watched the whiskey flare up into a darkening twilight as it kissed the flame.
“Might as well be me.”
(more…)casting runes — 16apr26
jera spinning, burning
dancing, turning
the catherine wheels
in ribbons & gold
come along
that may night
which has love
surrendered
in kissing
a goddess?
mead drunk,
&
a forgotten askA poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.
Today’s rune is jera. Jera is translated as “year”, and has also been translated as “harvest”. This rune is representative of cycles, the “wheel of the year”, the union of opposites (implied by the summer half of the year ending, winter half of the year beginning), balance, as well as cause/effect relationships.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
Gerald’s Game
With apologies to Stephen King for the title.
Another fiction prompt from my good friend, Jolene.
Here are your story line (+ can’t kill MC):
- Person who has broken something that cannot be replaced
- Person in professional disgrace
- Aquarium
- Forget to pass along the information
Gerald Hailstone had the necessary paperwork. What he didn’t have, as it turned out, was authorization to share that paperwork.
An oversight. Obviously.
(more…)
