Category: writing

  • casting runes — 26mar26

    wunjo
    all at face to her light
    rising on the eastern reach
    to feel her warmth
    against my cheek
    to turn to her return

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

    Today’s rune is wunjo, which is translated as “joy” and has been interpreted in both the earthly sense as well as in spiritual ecstasy. It has been associated with healing (emotional, mental and interpersonal) and some sources connect the rune to luck, the act of making a wish, or applied will. Wunjo can also be the inspiration for creativity.

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

  • casting runes — 25mar26

    ingwaz
    i draw on bonefires
    burning shadow
    from the long night
    the dance mantic
    against tall oaks
    & selling dream

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

    Today’s rune is ingwaz, a rune named after the god Ing or Freyr. It is representative of a channeled energy or transformational process. It is also be seen as the male component of life, and therefore a symbol of sexual passions and the contributed “seed” of life (and, therefore, an aspect of one’s ancestral ørlǫg, or fate/destiny). Some interpretations conceive the rune as a symbol of darkness, solitude or dreaming.

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

  • Epilogue

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Epilogue

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

    The Meridian Club had been a monument to high-stakes vice; now, it was just an open wound catching the city’s freezing rain. Red and blue police lights pulsed through the ruptured doorway, casting long, fractured shadows across the pulverized baccarat tables and the sea of abandoned chips.

    In the dead center of the devastation, Cross stood up from the gray ash and dusted off his suit.

    (more…)

  • undertow

    what's the point?

    scrape bone with flint 
    phantasmagoric
    and toss finger broke 
    i can hear her calling
    over the wave;
    so slip me undertow
    before i wake

  • under a blood moon

    i cut my lip while
    kissing your lazuli eyes
    under a blood moon
    last night, at least
    a decade ago
    it seems today

    bone pale, you laughed
    as you tossed your
    ebon hair away
    cast it to the stars to
    wash my cut away

    i only wished
    i had listened harder
    before i grew stone
    in sternum and
    memorized the how
    of that song on the
    breeze that night

  • Case File #15: Absolute Zero

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Case File #15: Absolute Zero

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

    Kogan’s lead ampoule shattered under my bandaged knuckles. The purified salt and cold iron filings scattered across the green felt, but the dead quicksilver didn’t just spill… It leapt. It shot from the broken glass like a liquid soul, violently drawn to the impossible shape of the Black Sulfur token.

    It hit the velvet exactly as Cross’s rotting entropy and Gallow’s crushing stasis slammed into the table.

    The ignition didn’t produce a fireball. It produced an execution.

    (more…)

  • marionette

    my scrimshaw heart
    ink etched and pale
    bound in rust wire
    wound around old nails

    tired for explanations
    eyes shutter-slip click - - -
    stop.

    then comes that
    marionette walk
    back to gods’ little
    alcove behind
    her priesthole
    waiting for another
    tick of the tock

  • casting runes — 22mar26

    othala
    we walk the high wire
    with all of our pasts trailing
    down old roads, old paths
    those frayed threads slipping
    through our fingertips
    twisting at the spindle

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is othala, which has a core meaning of “heritage”, “inheritance” and “legacy”. These are all associated with home, kin, ancestors, stability and (in some interpretations) past lives or spiritual legacy.

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

  • Case File #14: Lead Comes to Dinner

    an episodic Vivian Locke occult noir

    Image generated by Gemini, with direction by Michael Raven

    Sunny Day Parasol Co.

    Case File #14: Lead Comes to Dinner

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

    Cross’s amused smile vanished, replaced by a look of ancient, profound annoyance.

    I sat dead still in the crushing quiet, my breath shallow and held tight. The dull, rhythmic ache from the deep cuts on my left hand from the shattered neon glass was a sharp, ordinary pain, the only thing anchoring me against the impossible physics tearing the air apart. My bandaged fingers held steady over the lead ampoule, caught in the dead center of a hurricane where absolute stasis was locked in a brutal collision with pure, corrosive entropy.

    (more…)

  • carnival

    all eyes turn aglow at dusk
    casting shades on faces facing faces
    the song on the wind
    faint as the laughter
    at carnivals dark trading youth
    for hearts' deepest longing