Category: writing

  • stormriders

    Photo by Sina Bakhtiari on Unsplash
    when at wanders
    listen moon
    listen night
    crossroads gather
    feather swoon
    feather flight
    we are we are
    we are of
    stormriders
    tonight

  • blackwater

    of godless ways wandering
    between gallows gone to grey
    the rocky shore's blackwater
    framed in deadwood propped 
    in seaweed and broken oar
    waiting for the sluagh's arms
    to embrace a heart of coal
    the company of ravens and
    a host of crows waiting
                              waiting
                              waiting
               for snows to fall

  • fell and stone

    Photo by Sina Bakhtiari on Unsplash
    hands stained in alder
    scarlet against the driven snow
    this blood runs to stone
    scattered over the path of fells
    heather rimed in white
    her sun rimed in snow
    below and now she rises
    blood on fell and stone

  • roads and halls

    sage bundles in a pot for smudging
    Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash

    I walked the beaded hallways red with you and you did not see, not really. Yes yes that’s very beautiful you said as we walked not the beauty of buckskin and ruddy skin. You saw only the patterned beads.

    You did not hear the heartbeat drums causing the red hallways to thrum and pulse as you raced towards the light, making sure you could say you had experienced it all for yourself, but you did not hear, nor see.

    You did not feel their blood on your skin, nor the sweat, nor the tears. You said you knew it all, had read it in a book you couldn’t recall the title of, nor author. And you pulled me along, not letting me linger to “feel the feels”. You told me you would find the book in the library for me so I could feel.

    I reached for the medicine up in the night, but you bound me to prevent “my escape”.

    I spoke to ravens and stones.

    You just stared at me.

  • Market missing

    I miss the Market today.

    Pikes Market, Seattle
    Photo by Sabine Ojeil on Unsplash

    It would be closed by now, of course. But I would have skipped out of work early and spent the afternoon window shopping comics, trinkets, maybe some herbs or incense. Walk down to the pier, although it was a stranger the last time I walked there because of the missing viaduct.

    I’d buy a couple of börek to take back to the apartment, reheat for dinner, salad or quinoa with tahini dressing on the side. I was never a very good vegetarian back then — I couldn’t give up my cheese or butter, but I rarely ate meat when I could visit the Market. Honestly, I rarely ate at all.

    (more…)

  • lakesong

    Photo by Ariana Kaminski on Unsplash
    hush the reeds canoeing under
    loon her haunting waves over
    dragonfly blue on knee on oar
    kodak cubeflash sun at branches
    song mine of thunder rolling
    cuts flint grey brilliant skies
    redwing cattail watching
    follows eyes painted

  • acorn man

    a path in the middle of a dark forest
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
    sun and shadow
    dancing the bones
    between the tonights
    laid over growing
    groundcover dark
    within the wode

    acorn man mad they
    call his wanders
    under oak over stone
    pond water mirrors
    his autumn ways

    hey hey they call of above
    do not walk yourself lost
    black laughter rising
    he laughs along
    wanderwalking the wode
    acorn man disguised

  • oh, ffs [an update]

    Perhaps I was a bit unfair, but anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows that I purchased my domains for the blogs to avoid littering reader’s screens with adsense and other monetization tools. I don’t think it is unreasonable to point to a vendor for my book on a page that I rarely reference that I have made less money on in total over the course of three years than I make per hour at my paying job.

    Added that I have been a WordPress advocate for nearly twenty years, getting the email that I am going to have to upgrade my Jetpack subscription to a commercial license was just adding insult to injury (with respect to the commenting fiasco when I first migrated to this site because either Jetpack or the WordPress.org code is borked for one option on commenting).

    That said, I made a ruckus this morning. I’m not proud of it, because it led me to insulting an AI chatbot’s parentage and legal status. But I had reached my limit with the shenanigans I was experiencing.

    So I vented.

    It went to a human at Jetpack, which surprised me. When they foist you to forums, you always assume you are now on your own.

    The person at the other end went through and agreed that this site does not fit the definition of a commercial site and manually adjusted it. I am pleasantly surprised and Automattic has been downgraded on my “evil overlord” spectrum to being merely “naughty-leaning, wait-and-see”.

    I hesitate to reactivate the book page without overhauling it and removing links, but I might rebuild it so it seems less “commercial”.

    Anyway — thanks for putting up with my venting.

    Back to writing!

  • Campfire Sessions — 06 apr 25

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    It’s time to be off, they said.

    There was not much left of the once-long stick I had been using to poke at the dying embers for a spell. Each time I poked, bright orange sparks would jump from the rippling ruby coals. For no particular reason, doing so brought me a flash of joy.

    I have always been a firebug. Maybe that was why.

    I turned to Raven, their feathers ruddy in the glow of the remains of my campfire. Off where? I asked.

    You know, they said.

    (more…)

  • inner

    sage bundles in a pot for smudging
    Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash
    we crawled into
    innerworld
    on our hands &
    knees

    you kissed me
    otherside &
    promised me all
    night

    sage was a'drifting
    stones were shifting &
    flames burned to
    embers