Category: writing

  • 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.

  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #6: Between a Gallow and a Hard Place

    an episodic Vivian Locke noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    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.

  • casting runes — 04mar26

    hagalaz
    as stiff as storm &
    as sharp as bone
    a burr joins them all

    i stand at hollow
    arms outstretched
    a wight without a stone

    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.

  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #5: A Permanent Tuesday

    an episodic Vivian Locke noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

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

    Kogan threw a heavy velvet cloth over the retort, a gesture that strangled the light and the visual connection. “Dredge wasn’t moving ordinary stolen goods for the Johnson who hired him, Locke. Not by a long shot.”

    He walked to the door and worked the locks with the practiced care of a man who didn’t want unexpected company. The deadbolt slid home with a weary sigh. The second lock clicked like a rat trap. Then the heavy iron bar dropped into place with a definitive, bone-jarring clank. He flipped the sign in the grime-stained, chickenwire-reinforced shop window to “Closed,” turning the world outside into a dull rumor, and dimmed the lights, making the room a cave of shadows and secrets.

    (more…)

  • scrawl

    Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash
    here is me writing heartletters
    with bare finger; my page, your skin
    words flowing over rolling hills
    and scrawling your valleys, too
    all through gloaming to night
    to taste shadows growing long
    with each and every bite
    every syllable song ringing
    rhyme with euphoric firefly

  • casting runes — 02mar26

    algiz
    come ride the snake
    into the cave &
    under the wood —
    what historic futures
    might we find?

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

    Today’s rune is algiz, which may mean either “elk” (there is some uncertainty if this is the case) or yew (Old Norse). It is associated with the Otherworld, protection/sanctuary, and with guardian spirits/fylgja. The unconscious mind is also sometimes associated with algiz.

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

  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #4: The Ghost in the Glass

    an episodic Vivian Locke noir

    AI image based on this work & created with Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven.

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

    “Jesus, Viv. You don’t have to be some bitchy dame about it. Sure sure, I’ll help you out. Always have, haven’t I?” he grumbled, grinding his cigarette in a graveyard of butts in the overflowing ashtray. He muttered something low and ugly and, with a wave of his hand, coaxed the frost to slink back into the frost-encrusted case like a beaten dog.

    “First things first,” he added, his voice a low gravel. “Let’s get that little bit of nasty into containment.”

    (more…)

  • casting runes — 01mar26

    uruz
    hungry for a springtime rut
    the aurochs wanders
    misty morning moors

    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.