• Me no likey the block likey

    michael raven

    Some days, you can’t win for the losing.

    In trying something out for WordPress on a test site, I saw a new block that I thought would solve a frustration of mine about the .org version of WordPress, where you have to force folks to click on the post title to “like” a post when they visit outside of Reader. I finally had a block to add to my front page for likes (on those short poems).

    Which is fantastic. Except… It doesn’t appear to be registering likes in the notifications on either of the versions of Reader (web or Jetpack App), which is where I keep track of such things. Which means the functionality is broken and I need to rework the site design to get back that functionality to where it should be.

    TARNATION!

    This is a consistent problem with the Jetpack plugin for WordPress. They push out a feature without really testing it prior to launch and it breaks things. Last year, it was the commenting system until an update. Other times, features don’t do what they are functionally designed to do. Reader regularly gets web updates that are headscratchers at best, and breaks Reader until someone can hotpatch it at worst.

    I love the folks at WordPress, but they really need to do a better job of testing their incremental updates before something goes live.

    Back to your regularly scheduled programming. I just needed a quick vent.

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  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #2: Copper on the Take

    michael raven

    AI generated image at Michael Raven’s direction

    This is a serialized story. Start here for the first episode.

    Whatever happened down the street had a sound that scraped against the soul, even for this blighted patch of the city. More than my exposed skin prickled in the charged rain, thick with the scent of ozone and something fouler. Even a magically-disinclined Hollow like me didn’t need a gifted psychic to tell them that shriek was tied to the recent bagboy, not someone thrilled to be boosting a sports car. For one thing, no rubber burned to drown out the wee-hour drone. For another, the sound was less ‘joyride’ and more ‘soul-flaying’. Had that same sound clawed its way out of some window over The Red Door down in The Tenderloin District, my assessment might have shifted. I might have even paused long enough to offer a slow, dark clap of appreciation.

    (more…)

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  • casting runes — 24feb26

    michael raven

    sowilo
    though skies still cast iron &
    ice still lies scattered
    across winter soil
    butter spread on doorposts
    grows softer each morn

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

    Today’s rune is sowilo, the sun. Sowilo is the source of enlightenment, for lighting the way and illumination. It is also called the “icebreaker” and gives power to an “attack”, ensuring success and/or prosperity. This rune also represents hope, the light at the end of a long darkness.

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

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  • night braille

    michael raven 

    i read the night braille
    a chill breeze raises on skin
    all fingertip & firefly slow
    with a burning below
    while your fingernail
    stole away my breath
    whisper in crushed velvet
    while crickets fiddle
    under full moons

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  • sharp

    michael raven 

    all these sharp objects tempting
    of the thorn words piercing lips
    to suture and to bind and to seal
    away razor cantrips in sting

    dawnblade dancing broken wrists
    to pirouette to pain and thrust
    for scarlet upon the snowdrops
    at least, they will say, he had good cause

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  • casting runes — 23feb26

    michael raven

    uruz
    slag cooling in drizzle grey
    trampled & gone back to mud
    under the muscle ache

    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.

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  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #1: Cold Case

    michael raven

    episodic short fiction | a Vivian Locke noir

    AI generated image at Michael Raven’s direction

    It takes a lot of nerve to slide uninvited into my booth when I’m halfway through a bad week and a worse cup of coffee — it could have just as likely dishwater as coffee by the sheen reflecting my mug in the surface. Usually, I’d just tell the stray to take a hike. But the guy smelled like burnt ozone and sheer panic, and before I could even complain about the static-charged puddle he was leaving on the seat across from me, he slammed a frost-encrusted attaché down on the cracked and stained laminate.

    (more…)

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  • Rebooting fiction prompts

    michael raven

    Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

    The last few prompts that have intrigued me enough to write about have a wee bit of a problem when it comes to the stated goals of including more prose fiction to this site.

    As I work on the barebones outlines and start making headway into the actual writing of the stories based on the prompts, I discover that they are regularly exceeding the length of what folks normally consider to be flash fiction (<1000-1500 words by most standards; my personal limit being <2000 words).

    With only the beginning scene for the occult noir story the prompt handed me last week, I am already at 1000 words, which makes it hard to have a middle and end in the next 1000 words. To complicate matters I only have the vaguest notion of where the story might end up, so it could easily be quite a bit longer by the time I’m finished.

    But I’m enjoying this world that’s coming into shape and I don’t want to rush the story just to fit in with an arbitrary limit that no one but myself is imposing on me.

    So, first-off, I will stop calling those prompts “flash-fiction prompts” and just call them “fiction prompts”.

    Secondly, due to the added length, I’m going to post fiction offerings longer than flash-fiction lengths in episodic format to keep the posts within the average attention span. Plus, this particular story will benefit from the technique of employing mild cliff-hangers. I probably won’t post an episode daily when I do this, but I will try not to let it go longer than a week between episodes (I’m also taking additional editing steps that are not common to my posted fiction).

    I also have a rough outline of a story that I may pursue for Jolene’s prompts, and that will likely also exceed my original limits (if I share it at all, it depends on if my take on the humorous tale feels right when it is done).

    Just letting everyone know where my head it at and explaining my thought processes. The first episode from the files of Vivian Locke will post later today. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

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  • let love electra

    michael raven 

    tied to sky at
bailing wire
in rust scent &
tainted taste
everyone wants
to go to a heaven
all wrapped
here in arms
& rags
but no one
will let love
electra

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  • Half-penny thoughts — 21feb26

    michael raven

    As I write more prose, certain questions pop up in my head about the decision making process of other writers across multiple medias.

    One of the tropes that always has me scratching my head is that of most apocalyptic tropes — the limited food stores that people are going through, some of it 20-30 (or more years old). It’s as if no one survived who knew hunting/foraging techniques, or were willing to try to do either. They seem quite content on starving day to day or cracking open a dinged up, rusty can of dog food to chase away the hunger pangs. Yet, something as simple and prolific as dandelion greens seems to escape their notice. After a few months’ time, they wouldn’t even need to worry about herbicide residual on the greens (and yet, quite possibly worry about chemical residues in the dog food, curiously enough).

    And I know, most people don’t consider common plants found on lawns and in the wild when they are hungry, but it always seems like a strange omission to not consider forage as a food source. If the world is irradiated, it is one thing to eliminate forage, but a zombie plague? Why aren’t they eating the edible shrooms growing in the forest behind the zombie-infested general store instead of risking their lives for 20-yo dogfood out of a can?

    What do you think? Am I making too big of a deal about it and there are plenty of examples of sensible food consumption in the fictional apocalypse? If you were to be a survivor, what kinds of things you try to learn how to cultivate or forage to avoid cat food tins or dodgy baked beans in a can?

    Extra think to ponder: Did you know there are no commonplace true rhymes for “orange” or “month”? Prove me wrong in the comments, if you disagree.

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