listen:
were it that you could
hear these bones
being etched in
scrimshaw behind
my age-cured flesh
what might you see
if you could hear?
a great horned owl
scrying mantic in
the deepening night?
peat bog perfume
rising from what shadows
are left to remain?
what peels bark
behind blackthorn?
i gather flint
in scarred hands
along with ash and
charcoal black
to scratch louder
runes anew
listen
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listen
Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26
It’s been just over a week since our two new family members joined us and I really wish I could say that we were all a big old blended family of felines but — as the fates would often have it — it was not meant to be. Not yet anyway.
While the current trend of kitten introduction is to slow-walk it over a period of weeks, I had honestly planned for a weekend (plus or minus a few days), let a little fur fly and paws catch air as the older cats got used to the idea of having new housemates. The band-aid method. I assume the sooner they go through the motions, the better and the quicker everyone will acclimate.
But… well… there was a slight issue with that.
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Hei, Skogkatter — 02aug26
the hanging man
it is passing strange
how a turn of word
tugs at puppet strings
whereas an elegant mask
might only hang
it is always the
whispered words
with the most draw
as we dance at
the edge of a tether
aching for moreTo like, click comments or:
the hanging man
mortal tethers
tonight, i give over
surrender to loam & peat
let mycelium feed while
slumbering between
bile & bog, briar & weed
betwixt both thorn & stone
slipping deeper,
even mortal tethers
may breakTo like, click comments or:
mortal tethers
may i comply
I walked through crowds to get there, the far end of the bookstore only to have one person tie me with metal, the other to tie me with promises of dream — a waterfall crashing laid claim to tether. They argued in pitted knives and sharper stares and with a sigh, I waded against the current flowing out behind them as they wandered the stacks full of shouting and yell.
I sought to slip away and couldn’t see a path until you, fey and slight, stepped along the twilight edge with feet but bare, a slip of shadow in the light as the two [remember the two?] argued on ahead. Sidestepping, you pressed your cheek to mine and promised an escape in exchange for a kiss in the growing night.
Foolish perhaps, but may I comply said I and kissed those lips pale and wan. You call that a kiss? asked you with a smile. That’s hardly a kiss worth an exchange on escape.
I leaned, did I, and leaned full into lips, stealing from you a bit of a sigh. Much better, you exclaimed and rolled in thunder by way of a reply. We fell as the rain leaving gold and falls in the behind as we rivered to loam — which was all too happy to drink us inside.
Stay, you said and May I comply, said I.
Until even the stones themselves might die.
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may i comply
evermore
'could i, a slip between cracks
would i find to the narrows'
'go sleeping on those hills,'
she suggested, offered, obliged
the moorlands her finger drew
'lichened stone to rest a head;
a blanket of peat to cover you
and heather to tincture your sleep'
i did as bid, grew antlers thorned
as i slumber a top that tor
i fell betwixt place and moor
having given self to evermoreTo like, click comments or:
evermore
call in Storm
feral you, on petite, lithe and narrow
dancing on the edge of betweens
with stolen kisses on slender promise
while others argue, deaf to your muse
bound within the must and dust of
parchment giants lining every room
a wink, a smile, and a theft once more
then,
we raise twin hands, call in StormTo like, click comments or:
call in Storm
Forfeit
Here’s another short bit of fiction based on writing prompts from Jolene Rice. They are the following four items with the only rule being that you cannot kill off your main character
- attacked by squirrels
- what nobody wants to talk about
- mascot for a professional team
- animal psychic
Apologies offered in advance.
I do lost cats, mostly. Colic in horses if the vet’s backed up. Twice a year somebody’s parrot stops talking and I sit with it for an hour and tell the family what they already know, which is that the parrot wishes they would ask for more than “Polly wants a cracker.” One, in particular, had a secret habit of shouting “Fucking hell!” whenever the house was empty, it told me. Practiced it all day long, most days, by his reckoning.
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Forfeit
three o’clock moon
she ghosted me through
with otherside push
and we danced
how we danced
all bone and lithe
under the three o'clock
moon
dead man's bells singing
as she fell to arms weeping
laughter staining corners
of eyes
"what will you do?
what do you say?"
"yes, i agree," replied i
and slept on the mound
given myself over...To like, click comments or:
three o’clock moon
