Category: writing

epiphany
```
tok tok tok --
raven tapping on the
fog filled street
```
[originally posted on sceadugenga.com, June 22, 2020]
02 Sep 26

wraps and chains

gallons of ink have been spilled
etching razor blade words 
into arms wrapped in the rags of
our stains

little changed in the years between
youth and age
till gagged
still chained

[Originally posted June 23, 2020 on sceadugenga.com]

01 Sep 26

sin

some strange feelings
come with that fragment
a song not heard since
the late 80s

part is loath to stream it
knowing that moment
of remembrance will
be ruined

the other part wants
to let it play loud
until the kids tell me
turn it down

in the meantime
i  fidget with the memory
trying to recall what it is
i think i recall

31 Aug 26

Going to the chapel…
Another four prompts from Jolene.
Another absurd little tale. Okay, maybe not that absurd.
The prompts:
1. laundromat
2. shocking announcement
3. person who takes shortcuts
4. person who needs to remove a tattoo right away
```
Gee, I really love you
And we're gonna get married
Going to the chapel of love
```
The sunlight was more blinding than it had any right to be, piercing even eyes closed tight against such insults and it sent my head spinning. Or the room spinning. Or, the whole world had become a giant tilt-a-whirl and I fought the urge to vomit up all the liquor I had consumed at the—
Umm. Record release party on the Strip. That sounded right, the answer hiding just behind the pounding on the inside of my skull by some wee gnome with a steel hammer.
After which, I think it was followed by an an after-hours rave.
I think. Things went all wobbly right after hailing the Uber with Jessie and that producer she had the hots for that we were chatting up at the release party.
(more…)
31 Aug 26
casting runes — 31aug26
kenaz
```
ash remains...
a smudge over each eye
to wipe away a pale veil
that lies, hidden
of shadow & fey
burning brands
to light the way
```
A rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.
Today’s rune is kenaz, which has been translated as both “torch” and “ulcer” . It is conceived as symbolic of flame, which is the illuminated creativity as well as the source of purification/healing/cautery. Fire is a a source of transformation and unmaking as well as heat, passion and light. As an ulcer, kenaz can be associated with a fever or inflammation, perhaps a wound which requires healing.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
31 Aug 26

thunder rumbles through

'the weather is changing,
i can feel it in my joints',
sounded so cliche & quaint
until it became a song i sang
for my own

have you ever just sat with
your pain? talk to it?
embrace it? hold it?

sometimes you can
befriend your pain as
thunder rumbles through—

31 Aug 26

undrifting

a hell-shackled drifter
with hot poison words
burning at the tongue —
were silence always
mine to own

but fire burns in veins
drenched in sweat i
try to sink heat down
ground out the fever
in the name

an exchange in only
shadow, puppet & flame
searing flesh with
each pass of the torch
under my skin

30 Aug 26

drift off

perfect, the rain day falling
over flint and cast as steel
coffee steam rising and
a wish of your here
— and knowing your why

whisper water on pavement
hush, don’t wake up the us
slumber undercover and
d r  i   f    t        o    f     f —

29 Aug 26

then, fade

tucked between birchbark light
and gathered by the bramble
wire-bound his bone heart waiting

lichen keeps no tick-clock and so
the world waited on granite time
before blood was to crack the flow

no gate, nor thorn
no gate, nor thorn
he wound thread taut
around twin thumbs
by which he was
to remember

then, fade and

28 Aug 26

Down by the wyching tree
I toed off my shoes all mouse quiet to avoid the verbal hiding I was about to receive, but that weren’t gonna fool him. The man was like one of those psychic kids from the Stephen King books. The early ones. Those good ones left all beat to hell in the library cos so many hands have held them they are permanently fanned out with especial gaps where the good parts are. The scary parts. Sometimes the sexy parts.
It weren’t the well-oiled hinges that betrayed me, but the gust of autumn wind come raging through the open I had slipped through on my way in tattled by way the flickering of the candle light dancing shadows as it rush on past.
“Where you been.” It weren’t a question.
“Out.”
“Out?”
“Out.”
I didn’t bother hiding my footsteps no more as I walked down the hallway, didn’t skip that creaky part right by the picture of my ma when she weren’t much older than me.
(more…)
27 Aug 26