Vikings vs Indians

Guess who's been bored over break. I culled some sap, fuck that emotional shit. Any comments welcome, of course, especially regarding a title (which I sorely need but cannot think of, as is my wont).
---
I hurt myself yesterday, in the Weald. I spilt my own blood in that place for the first time since a night shortly before your mother was taken, long before you were born. As I fled the red-spattered branch that had cut me I prayed to the gods whom our people once worshiped before they took to worshiping the earth and the wood: to the hanging god, beloved of ravens, to the forgotten god, one-handed, to the blind god, kinslayer, who is closer to me now than to any other.

And the gods heard me as they have heard me all my life, I who am perhaps their last remaining servant. A mighty wind forced aside the grasping branches and cast the wood's veil of leaves into a swirling tempest, and the things in the trees fell silent. The breath of the hanging god drove away the mist that clings ever to that accursed place, and between the waving crowns of the trees I saw that night had fallen and the moon had risen. Its wan light illuminated the only true path remaining in all the Weald, and I followed it – not out to the shore, but in towards the firedale. I ran with the wind at my back, and at last I came to the great ash that is the only one left of its kind on all the island, and I saw that from its bare branches hung husks that had once been men. I climbed into its bole and there I took shelter with the bones of my father.

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A hand on my head roused me from the world of sleep to the world of dreams, and upon opening my mind's eyes I saw myself kneeling before our lord (for he is yours as well, though you may not know it), and I kissed his feet until he bid me stand. His likeness has been seared upon my soul, though I gazed upon him for only a moment. His spear is the color of the moon, and his neck is scarred beneath his beard. His left eye shines as red as blood or fire, but his right is empty and dark. On either of his shoulders is perched a raven - they whisper to him, for they know all that passes through the minds of men.

“Look about you, child, and see this land as it was,” he said, and I did. The great ash's boughs were bare no longer, rather they bore leaves and keys in abundance, and the things that hung from them were men once more, their tongues blue and protruding, their eyes pouring blood onto the green earth. I saw my father among them and wept from pride, and my tears too were red. Through the branches of the ash I could see that it was still night and that the moon was high, but this did not give me cause for fear, for there were no other trees within view, no places for devils or false men to hide: the ash stood in the center of a great clearing, as it had during the childhood of my father's father.

“Meager grows my might, for men give themselves to me no more,” said the hanging god, and his voice was the rustling of the men among the branches. “He whom the false men call the father of the deep wood has tainted the air, and she whom they call the mother of the deep earth has spoilt the water. I cannot fight them any longer, not without blood freely-given: my tongue is stiff and my eye grows dim - I am as blind as my son now, or soon shall I be.” I responded with meaningless words, I shall not write them here.

“Your folk withers and diminishes as does mine. As your wife was taken, so was mine. Your son has forgotten my name as surely as he has yours. Your kith and kin have cast you out for serving me, and for that their doom is to become as the false men are. But they were my children once, and for that I cannot forsake them. Write to your son, and tell him the truth of what you have done. Perhaps he will believe you, and perhaps they will believe him – perhaps enough to once more spill willingly their life's blood at my feet.” At this I glimpsed his teeth, though he did not smile, and they were were red and sharp. “Trust the letter to my wife's father – still is he strong and hale, for the false men do not sail the seas.”

And thus do I write now: that you might know the history of our folk, that you might spread the word of the true gods. And also that you might know why I have wrought what I have, I whose hands run red with blood. That as well.


The gods have made the following known to me:
Our folk once lived in a land far to the north, where we were more numerous than the trunks of the trees in the deep wood (and perhaps moreso than the things that flit between those trees on nights when the moon is full, though that is not for men to know). It was cold there, and that is perhaps why we set out southwards as we did, in craft whose making has since been lost to us. In those lands our faith was strong, and our gods were the masters of Sea and Sky and Weald. And such was it when we first came to these wooded shores: we hewed the trees for our ships and our fires, and hung the devils we found among them from the ashes, and we bent the earth to our service with plows and horses. The false men rose up against us from deep within the wood, but we crushed them and devoured their flesh and cracked their bones between our teeth, and none of us worshiped their gods.

But there is an evil in this earth that we did not perceive. As the soil that we had wrested from the trees' grasp soured and turned to dust we were forced ever inland, away from the smell of salt and the crash of waves, out of the reach of the ships that in those days still came southwards. It was then that the Weald began to come to life. Or perhaps it did not so much come to life as awaken from an ages-long slumber, roused by the ringing of axes along its fringes, by the spilt blood of false men in its streams, by the tramping of boots in its deep places where before all had gone unshod.

Paths at first seemed to shift about, it was said, and slowly to disappear entirely, guttering like so many candles in the gloom. The boughs of the trees grew thicker, until they blotted out the sun's gaze and cast all beneath them into unbroken shadow. A gleaming mist clung to the earth, and a man could see his own reflection in it if he looked deep enough, and men's voices seemed to carry strangely through it, at times ringing clear from the branches though the speaker was nowhere in view, but at others stifled so that a man could scarcely make out the speech of a companion. And there were things in that mist, things that hungered for blood as our gods do. I do not believe anyone living has seen them but from the corners of the eyes, black and silver shapes clambering through the branches at the edges of sight, so silent that one was never certain that the sounds that they made were not instead made by the trees. But all this you know, for that is how the Weald has been all your life, and all mine.

Slowly men began to vanish, and the wood began to grow, until it stood once more between us and the sea. And at some point the false men began to take our women and our children.


I should write of the false men, I think, for I do not know if you have any knowledge of them: the days in which they fought us openly are long past, and even in my childhood there were some who claimed that they had never lived but in our minds. I know this to be untrue, as does any man who walks the Weald keeping an eye open to signs of their passing – to the bones of their kills, to the holes left behind by their arrows, to the pits where they burn sacrifices of roe and boar to their father and mother. It is my belief that they have lived on this island since the beginning, for they fear the sea and will not approach it for any reason: they eat neither fish nor salt, as the lay of their fires would have it. Their villages are in the deepest parts of the wood (though I have never seen them I know this must be so, for I have trod every arrowshot of this island save those), close to the places where their gods are strongest. Perhaps those same gods shaped them from clay and vines in the bough-shadows of that fell place, as ours shaped us from iron and ice beneath the branches of the first ash.

I saw one, once. I was alone in the Weald, I do not know why (this having been before I slew the woman who said she was your mother), and from the corner of my eye I saw something that I had never before seen in the mist: something real, not devil nor my own likeness, cast back at me, twisted beyond recall. I spun to face it, knowing as I did that it was foolish to do so, and I saw before me something that looked very much like a man, yet different: it had the shape of a man, with the proper count of limbs and features of the face, but its flesh was the hue of blood fresh-spilt, and it had no beard, and feathers sprouted from its hair, and it was unclothed. Its eyes were dark and full of anger, and it was only then that I realized that in its hands was a bow with arrow nocked. The forgotten god saved me then, for as I made to leap to the side my foot caught on a root, and I fell forward into an apparition of the mist that vanished at my touch. The arrow, which came from my left, but grazed the skin of my outstretched arm, and I drew my father's ax and spun to face whence it had come. The false man snarled from rage and hate, but seeing the cold iron in my hand gave it pause, I think – pause enough for it to note the blood trickling down my arm. With one last glance, perhaps of triumph but perhaps also of terror, it fled into the roiling mist, its unshod feet making no sound on the holy path.

It was only then that I myself took heed of my wound, which though little more than a scratch had begun to bleed mightily and to steam in the cold that had suddenly gripped that place. I ran, and the mist surged about me, though it was no longer pale but black with the shadows of the things within it, leaping and chittering and crying like cats or newborn babes. I did not dare look to either side, for fear that I would see clearly those things that had been so long hidden from my sight, but from the corners of my eyes I could glimpse them whirling around me, flitting from tree to tree and from branch to branch. My blood did not fall straight to the ground but rather towards the mist, though there was no wind, and occasionally I could feel their caress as I ran through the shadows, and it was the icy touch of madness.

Until finally I stumbled into the light of the sun, glinting off the sea like molten iron in a forge, and I fell to the ground and kissed it and wept. I do not know why, but I believe that when my lips touched the earth was when the false man whose arrow had cut me took your mother.


I did not realize she had been taken, of course, until you had already been born. I feel certain that this will not puzzle you, but at the same time I fear that it may, and so I will lay out here what you doubtless already know: that when the false men take a child he vanishes without a trace, but when they take a woman grown they leave something behind in her stead, some artifice of earth and wood imbued with life by the breath of their fell goddess, to live on as wife and mother for so long as the ruse rest hidden from mind.


I returned to the village the next day (having slept along the shore so that my wound might heal) to learn that my wife had also gone missing the same day as I, but that she had been found hale and well along the fringes of the Weald, claiming only to have gone to pick berries. And for many moons I did not suspect anything to be amiss, not between the time of your quickening and the time of your birth, nor between the time of your birth and the time you saw her last. And perhaps I never would have, had the gods not intervened.

The starved god came to me in a dream the night before I slew her. I could see him, as I still can, though even in the dream my eyes were tightly shut. He is bald and toothless, his eyes are rheumy and without sight, and his limbs are as those of a child. His stomach is taut and distended. He crawled towards me, and though I knew fear I could neither move my limbs nor raise my voice. He sat upon my chest, and his weight, little more than that of a fawn though it was, bound me as surely as irons. He reached for my throat then, but halted and instead brought his gaping, drool-slick mouth to my ear, and his voice was terrible like the first wind of winter.

“Your wife is dead by your sin,” was all that he said. And I awoke, and knew it to be true.


The next day I looked upon her with new eyes, and followed her in secret as she went to the fringes of the forest and dug a pit where she burnt a rabbit and buried it that none might find it. I knew then that she had been taken long before, and I cursed her, as I have cursed so many others since, and seized her by the neck. Her movements were slow and clumsy, and she smelled not of flesh but of wood and leaves. I slew her with my ax, the first sacrifice to the hanging god by any among us since the day that ax's last wielder climbed the ash. But not the last, ere our folk worship the old gods once more, ere my work be at long last through.


I do not know why, but I feel I must tell you that her blood was as red as my own. That is all that is left for me to write. I shall cast this bark to the drowned god, and trust that by his mercy it find its way to you.

Happy holidays, folks!

Hope you're enjoying your break :)

False Asian Oracles

I never used to understand the saying, “don’t let the bed-bugs bite.” That was before I had any of the damned things. It started with my addiction to false Asian oracles. My friend David told me one night at a Chinese restaurant that fortune cookies are always better in bed. The only thing I got out of the suggestion is crumbs all over my sheets. Then the bugs came. I’m pretty sure they were drawn to the fortune-cookie crumbs, or maybe they were Confucius’s form of revenge for my ignoring his advice too many times. Now I have trouble sleeping at night for worry that the damned bugs might crawl some place they don’t belong. Next time I see David I assure you I’ll be giving him a fortune cookie in a place it doesn’t belong. I still haven’t kicked my addiction, but now I take them only in restaurants or at the kitchen table. My latest fortune: “Your heart will always make itself known through your words.” The last of my lucky numbers is 42, so I’m trying to figure out how this fortune is connected to the ultimate answer of life.

Sunny Side Up

edited 11/29

In a separate reality, you didn't leave me for her

and we wake up in the same bed

and i'll make eggs the way you like them

(sunny side up)

we'll laugh

over petty fights

(for we'll always make up)

over tired arguments

(when you tell me I'm always right)

over former lovers.

In the mornings, when i wake up

with the lingering sense of stillness

the apparent void of you

I think of this parallel universe

where we are so, so happy

like we always were.

And this is how

I stopped crying

over the constant reminder of your perfume,

and her sunny little smile.

untitled

in a separate reality, you didn't leave me for her

and we wake up in the same bed

and i'll make eggs the way you like them

(sunny side up)

we'll laugh

over unsung fights

over tired arguments

over former lovers.

In the mornings, when i wake up

with the lingering sense of stillness

the apparent void of you

i think of this parallel universe

and we are so, so happy

like we always were.

And this is how
I don't cry over us anymore.

-------------

1) i need a title.

2) I don't like the last two lines but that is the basic idea of this whole poem.

3) should i add more details?

4) what do u guys think?

Thanks!

To my beloved son:

This story's very, very much unfinished. I'll update it as I make progress. Any comments welcome! I'm especially interested in if you think the first two paragraphs are necessary.
---
Too long has it been since I saw you last, my beloved son. Perhaps you no longer remember my name, though you must remember my face, and the feeling of my arms around you near the fire, and the sound of my voice. I write you now by the grace of the old gods, who watch over us still (though you know them not), and I write you for this cause: I would not die with the lies of the elders of our folk still in your ears. I am no traitor, no murderer. It is they who have betrayed our people, they who have driven us into the depths of black madness. If you trust nothing more of this letter, trust this at least: it was not I who killed your mother, though it was I who slit her throat.

But before I tell you of our folk, and of our gods, and of your mother's death, I must tell you of how it has come to pass that you are reading my words now for the first time in all these long years, how it has come to pass that I now have the courage that I had lacked for so long.

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I hurt myself yesterday, in the Weald. I drew blood in that place for the first time since a night long before your mother was taken, long before you were born. As I fled the now-red leaf that had cut me I prayed to the gods whom our people once worshiped, before they were fooled by the false men: to the hanging god, beloved of ravens, to the blind god, kinslayer, to the forgotten god, one-handed, who is closer to me now than to any other.

And the gods heard me as they have heard me all my life, I who am perhaps their last remaining servant. A mighty wind forced aside the grasping branches and cast the wood's veil of leaves into a swirling tempest (but none touched my flesh). The breath of the hanging god drove away the mist that clings ever to that accursed place, and between the waving crowns of the trees I saw that night had fallen and the moon had risen. A thunderbolt lanced the heavens and illuminated the only path remaining in all the Weald, and I followed it – it lead not out to the shore, but in towards the firedale. I ran with the wind at my back, and at last I came to the great oak that is the only one left of its kind on all the island, and I saw that from its bare branches hung things that had once been men. I climbed into its bole and there I took shelter with the bones of my father.

A hand on my head roused me from the world of sleep to the world of dreams. I bowed before our lord (for he is yours as well, no matter what the elders have told you), and kissed his feet until he bid me stand. His spear is the color of the moon, and his neck is scarred beneath his beard. His left eye blazes red, but his right is dark. On either of his shoulders is perched a raven - they whisper to him, for they know all that passes through the minds of men.

“Look about you, child,” he said, and I did. The great oak's boughs were bare no longer, rather they bore leaves and acorns in abundance, and the things that hung from them were men once more, their tongues blue and protruding, their eyes weeping blood onto the green earth. I saw my father among them, and I wept with pride. Through the branches of the oak I could see that it was still night and that the moon was high, but this did not give me cause for fear, for there were no other trees within view: the oak stood in the center of a great clearing, as it had during the childhood of my father's father.

“Meager grows my might, for men give themselves to me no more,” said the hanging god, and his voice was the rustling of the branches. “Nevermore shall I breathe air untainted by the father of the deep wood. Nevermore shall I drink water unspoilt by the mother of the deep earth. My tongue is stiff, I sing the songs of the skies no more. My eye grows dim - I am as blind as my son now, or soon shall I be.” I responded, but my words were meaningless, so I shall not write them here.

“Your folk withers and diminishes as does mine. As your wife was taken, so was mine. As I have forgotten my son's name, so has your son yours, and so have your people mine. They have cast you out for serving me, and for that their doom is to become as the false men are. But they were my children once, and for that I cannot forsake them. Write to your son, and tell him the truth. Perhaps he will believe you, and perhaps they will believe him. Trust the letter to my brother, who is still strong and hale - the false men do not navigate the seas.”

Sidewalk Hooker

*edit Nov 13*


Every night, she stands on the corner of fourth and nothing
Waiting for a car to stop.
When one does, she hikes her bag higher up one shoulder
Drops the sleeve off the other
And walks,
With false nonchalance of the soul.
She leans down, low enough to tempt
High enough to withhold.
Carnation-red stained lips mouth the same words,
Every night
Coffee-stained teeth smile the same smile.
She never really smiles.
Prices and services are bandied about,
But she gets her way in the end
Because desperation is a good incentive.
Money comes in every night because
Her service isn’t really that expensive -
Her dignity may be cheap
But her rent simply isn’t.

The next night she’s there again
In a red leather skirt
And torn stockings
Her taffy-pulled legs seem to stretch out forever,
Caramel candy polluted with bourbon.
Sharp collarbones glare in the neon-lights.
Her head is down and her hair, coloured and re-coloured so much that she doesn’t know whether it was blond to begin with, black to end with, corrupted to brown all along the way,
her hair cascades down one side of her face.

Later that night when she plays her soundtrack of shrieks and moans
Depending on the part she has to play
It’ll be too dark for the man to see what she tries to hide
When he pulls aside the curtain of hair he won’t see the swollen scars
All he’ll see is gleaming breasts and dark nipples and more
Female flesh that he can control because he paid for it.
He won’t see her face.
When he goes home, he’ll see his wife’s face
And he’ll smile when he sees her smile at the carnations he brought her because carnations are her favourite flowers.
And he’ll forget the sidewalk hooker with the beautiful body and the scarred face.

Group writing activity from November the eighth

Oh, the joys of the everyone writes one sentence and then passes it along group activity.

My grandfather was a smelly, foul-humored Irishman. When he died I inherited none of his wealth, but only a peculiar locked box. It was about five inches long, carved from what looked like a fossilized potato, and I could only imagine what was inside. I decided it was a box best opened a good distance between meals, so as not to ruin one completely. After a lunch of ham-and-garganzola sandwiches, I went to my room and set the box in my lap, my fingers poised on the tarnished latch. I opened the box, and the familiar Irish smell of o'erwhelming filth rose to my nostrils - I staggered under its influence, and also out of surprise. Inside, I found a little man covered entirely in red, downy hair. Inside the box was the rarest of all Lucky Charms: the beige trapezoid. Immediately, I was overcome with ecstasy and I headed down to the pub, images of celebratory bottles dancing in my head. I was half the way to the pub when I felt movement in my pocket. The beige trapezoid flew out of my pocket and into a nearby horse, transforming it into the bloody unicorn of my dreams, fell and terrible against the autumn sky.

Fall's Pretenses

11/07 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift
to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining
everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit
that it's cold,
that soon the ground will be covered in white,
trapping us indoors
with electric heat and lights.

I'm looking forward
to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the warmth of summer.

I decided I didn't like most of the changes I made.
Older versions on post page

11/04 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift
to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining
everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit
that it's cold,
that soon the ground will be covered in white,
trapping us indoors
with electric heat and lights.
Venturing outside is a chore.
Layer upon layer of wool and cotton
stiffen my limbs and I cannot bend over to tie my shoe.

I'm looking forward
to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the freeness of summer,
when the frisbee zips overhead
and I leap to fetch it,
when the world's day is longer than mine
and the sun brightens the room,
warming the air inside and out.


11/2 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit that it's cold
and that soon the ground will be covered in white
and we'll be stuck indoors
with electric heat and lights.
I'm looking forward to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the warmth of summer.


Original version:

The air is getting chilly, now.
It was such a sudden shift to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining everyday
Like Nature refuses to admit that it's cold
That soon the ground will be covered in white
And we'll be stuck indoors
With electric heat and lights.
I'm looking forward to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
But the showers foreshadow
The warmth of summer.


Ahhh! Last minute blog post before the deadline! :-[ This is what happens when good poems fall out of your head the day before submissions are due... Let me know what I need to do to make it acceptable.

COOL

Hopefully things are clear now. Let me know if this works.

Clumps of Brown Hair


When he makes love to the young girl
what does the middle-aged long-married
man say to himself and the girl?
- that lovers live and desk clerks perish?
Al Purdy, “Married Man's Song”


When it's late
And I remember her face,
Excited, flashing under
The come-and-go streetlights
Flaring past
At one hundred miles per hour
As I try to rush her home on time,
What am I supposed to say to her now?
A cold handshake and wish her the best?

Those kind words
Would come out layered
Thick in honey and venom,
A spit in the face wrapped
With a crinkled red bow,
An offered hand, septic.

That would be a disservice
To the years that slipped down
The drain, staring in the mirror
And cutting my hair
At one in the morning,
Trying to get each trace of
Months-old smell gone
With the buzz of a razor.

That ride to her house
I lied to her and said
That desk clerks die.
Clumps of brown hair
On white tile floor
And the clerks still
Have their wooden desks.

Any last minute suggestions?

Wings

It’s so easy to slip
into your arms
delicate as silk,
wrapping soft
around my body

I swear I’ll molt
and turn
into a butterfly
if you let me
Stay
just a bit longer
and longer
and longer

I think it’s time for me to go.

Wait!
Where are my wings?

I need my cocoon.

Un Conte de Fée Moderne

*edited version Nov 6th, 2007*

Rose pulled on her gloves and zipped up her parka. She turned the engine off and sat there, trying to soak up the last vestiges of warmth, bracing herself for the cold outside. The silence in the car was deafening; it pressed upon her from all sides. Steeling herself, she pushed the package on the passenger's side further under the seat and jumped out of the car, shutting the door with a bang that was suffocated by the crush of branches and pine needles. She locked the car, which emitted a beep that, in the oppressive quiet of the forest sounded like a pitiful wail. Rose turned around slowly, taking stock of her surroundings and walked in the direction she hoped she remembered the house being in.


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She hadn't been to the house in years. Rose assumed that it had simply fallen into ruin after her grandmother’s death, not that it had been particularly glamorous to begin with. Moss and fallen needles carpeted the forest floor, dampening the sound of her feet, the occasional pinecone making her stumble briefly. Rose's well-padded figure didn't make climbing the slope easy and her laboured breath was visible as white as the snow on the branches overhead. She could barely see the sky through the press of the trees, but when she did catch a glimpse of it, she shuddered at its brooding grey. In the distance, a wolf howled, making Rose walk a little bit faster.

Through the trees she could see the lake. Memories of summers spent swimming its length came flooding back and she stopped for a minute to look at it. The dirty greenish-grey of its depths reflected the swirling clouds in the moody sky and Rose shivered because something about the anger in the water frightened her. It frightened her because she understood it.

Suddenly, she came upon a gravel path that she couldn't remember having been there before. Even, parallel grooves ran its length, left by fresh raking. Her face set in a frown that boded ill. She marched up the path, her boots scattering the little pieces of grey stone, destroying the ordered lines. The path circled a little island of Christmas roses and crocuses. Rose strode up to the freshly polished door with its gleaming knocker, set into the house still smelling of paint. It was the same house; she knew from the octagonal shape of the east wing, and the wide porch and her initials left scratched into the drainpipe that no longer hung slanted.

Rose slammed the knocker repeatedly against the door, leaving dents in its smooth surface. There was no answer. Her anger bubbled stronger and the edges of her vision dimmed. Blood rushed to her head and she reached for the handle and...the door opened. Rose fell against the man on the other side. Strong arms caught hold of her and steadied her against a chest that smelled of Old Spice and pine needles and freshly ground coffee. Her heart pounded with anger and fright and excitement. A little more time than reactionarily necessary passed before she raised her hands and pushed away from him. Hazel eyes gazed questioningly at her and a curved mouth asked her in for coffee. Rose stayed.

It turned out that her grandmother had only leased the land from the man's father, and as the lease had expired a few months ago, he moved up here to redo the place and escape from city life. He and Rose talked for hours and Rose stayed the night.

Rose woke early the next morning, dressed stealthily and walked back to the car for her things. When she came back, John wasn't awake yet, which made her job easier. She gently put a towel behind his head and kissed him until he sleepily opened his eyes. Rose slit his throat when he closed his eyes again and kissed her back. She wrapped him up and dragged him out to the lake. It was beginning to rain. There was a little dinghy beached close by and she threw the body onto it. She pushed it into the water and shoved it once, hard. She stood there as the rain got heavier and heavier, filling up the boat. She watched the boat float towards the middle of the lake, sinking a little bit more with each passing minute, gradually disappearing. She didn't leave until every trace of it had vanished.

Rose moved into the little house at the end of the gravel path in the woods by the lake. She lived there happily ever after.

under the wire

Love Poem

I know the line breaks are inconsistent, and mostly I just don't like this as it is now (mostly because I whipped it out last minute for the mag) but any feedback is appreciated. It'll look quite different later.

Eyes

I printed your photo four,

Five times

Darkroom shadows yawning black

Redlight peeking over my shoulders

You drifted up to me in the fixer

Shining eyes.

I thought the composition was pretty good, but I heard them whisper:

“Her photos are only good because he loves her.”

Hey now. It’s not that simple

In fact, that night some ugly sounds fell from our mouths

Sank, and splat! The only way ugly sounds can.

Spitting, gagging, tongue checking the gaps in our teeth for a word,

Something else we might hurl.

Empty,

I watched your neck, your shoulders

Tattoo shadows on the wall behind you.

But you’re too soft to leave marks. I knew this.

Eyes

Looked at me

Made me feel shame, know wrong

That is the precise sensation of scooping those glops and swallowing them again as thick hot sticks the throat.

But this I couldn’t develop.

Maybe I’d do best pointing out his nose. It’s really big.

The sun freckles it in June, July, August. He comes home from summer,

Comes home to my sheets

The tip of his nose nuzzles, nudges the blush into my cheeks.

“You grew freckles.”

His face holds mine

His cheeks smooth my forehead, ears, push my eyebrows into a mess

Hold me, hold me

I close my

Eyes

Five fingertips,

Soft pads trace lines in my soft neck nape

Palm cradling my head

You could play me, rhapsodize my skin, convince me of everything you aren’t

But you’re no symphony

You are laughter

Honest

Foolish

“Are you jealous my lashes are longer than yours?”

“No.”

When they flake off on your cheeks,

I corral them with the edge of my fingernail

Pinch the small, dark nymphs, and

Make wishes

Seven today.

One for world peace, because if you have seven wishes and don’t spend one on that, you’re a jerk.

Another for my grandpa, for his health.

I’d like to pull all A’s this semester

I hope tomorrow will be a beautiful day.

I want to go back to Japan sometime

It’d be cool to win a Hopwood.

I want you to look at me, that way, with your eyes, forever.

(untitled)

(If anyone has a good title idea, please let me know.)

My father is a very unique man. He considers himself (and rightly so) a European-style liberal intellectual who hates Republicans and conservative politics so fiercely that he must subconsciously rebel against the conservative fixtures around us at all possible times. He mentions marijuana when teaching students about civil suits in his government classes, antagonizes my mother’s born-again-Christian sister at all family gatherings, and, on the day before the 2004 presidential election, told the sole Republican girl in one of his classes that if George Bush won reelection, she had to bring us in an apple pie, because “He’s as American as apple pie, right?” At the same time, he has an indescribably powerful obsession with Richard Nixon, a man who was “just so horrible that you have to love spending time learning about him.”

Despite his excessive pride at being arrested during a political protest outside the White House in 1973, my father is still a law-abiding citizen, who believes that most laws, such as the drinking age, were put in place for a good reason. Ironically, once we venture outside the United States, he feels that we are culturally obligated to partake in the customs of the country we are visiting. In fact, on the big family trip to Italy my senior year of high school, he willingly gave my younger brother and I wine at every meal that it was offered to us.

For me, this was the perfect introduction to alcohol. I never relished the idea of going to a frat party my first weekend of college, having been persuaded to go out by my certainly alcoholic roommate, getting so trashed I passed out, and waking up with a boy I’d never met before in bed next to me. Drinking wine in Italy with my father was a much less stressful experience.

However, once we returned to the US, alcoholic consumption once again became taboo (unless, of course, we were having our friends from France over), and at every available opportunity, my father would tell me, “Don’t drink. It’s bad for you.” On occasion, he would even find it necessary to remind me that alcoholism runs on both sides of our family, and would go through a list of all my relatives who had been alcoholics, so as to suggest that once I started drinking, I may find that the sensations accompanying a rising blood alcohol level to be hereditarily pleasing, and I would be thus persuaded to spend all available time and capital filling myself with the devil’s nectar.

I wonder sometimes if he has forgotten that it was in fact he himself who gave me my first drink. Is his constant need to remind me of the horrific effects of alcohol in excess a way of quelling his inner guilt? Maybe he thought drinking in a country that condones such behaviors in minors negated the actual act of drinking, or that drinking in the company of people whose native land supported such consumption did the same.

Whatever the case, when I got my first lead role in a college operetta production, what did my father do? He popped open a bottle of dessert wine in celebration. And then on Sunday, taking me back to school for my first rehearsal, turned to me and said, “Don’t drink, honey. It’s bad for you.”

The Stones Have Minds

This is actually the original version of the story, but rather than try to edit two copies of the same file, I'll just link you to the most updated version.

Jack picked up a smooth, round stone on the river bank. “This will do!” he shouted to his friend, Lydia. She looked on in amazement as he flung the pebble across the water and watched it bounce on the little splashes it made, leaving a trail of ripples as it went.

“One, two, three, four, five, six...,” she counted to herself. It sunk in on the seventh. “Wow,” she said softly. “How did you do it?” she asked with excitement.

“It's easy!” he replied. “Watch.” He picked up another skipping stone, a little better than the first and managed to skip it eight times.

“Oh!” Lydia exclaimed. “Let me try!” She picked up the first stone she saw and threw it into the pond. It dropped in and sank straight to the bottom. Her eyes lowered in disappointment.

Jack chuckled, “No, no. You have to throw it out sideways. Kind of make it skim along the top.” He added, “You should also make sure you have a good rock. Smooth and round.” He searched the ground a bit. “...like this one!” He picked up the perfect stone. As he drew his arm back, he stopped. Did he just feel it shake? No, he must have been imagining things. He tossed it out, watching it go...four, five, ...wait, what was it doing? It looked like it was making a circle! Seven, eight...it was! Lydia looked on in excitement, but Jack was horrified! Stones shouldn't come back! At the tenth skip, the stone was at his feet again. Jack's mouth dropped open in surprise, and when Lydia looked up at him, her jubilation faded, leaving open a door for worry. “What's wrong, Jack?” she asked with concern.

Click on Post Page below to see the rest!

“Stones shouldn't do that,” he whispered. Jack lifted up the stone again. Once again he felt it shake, only this time he was sure he wasn't imagining it. “Lydia I think this stone is alive or something. It's shaking! I can feel it!”

She let out a little yelp followed by, “Throw it away, Jack!”

He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back. “I didn't even skip it that time!” he cried. And it was true; he had thrown it out expecting it to drop straight in, but the stone had bounced as if the water were a trampoline and skipped nine times back to him, once again landing at his feet on the tenth. Jack stepped back, saying “Stones shouldn't be alive like this.” Lydia stared silently and nodded. “Lydia, we should go.” Again she nodded. But as they turned, the stone jumped in front of them. They both let out a little scream and jumped back. It shook again. Then suddenly there was an ear-splitting crack and where the pebble had been now stood an unearthly creature with two muscular legs that ended in claws, a small, beady eye, and smooth, gray, leathery skin. It had no tail or arms, but its mouth was reminiscent of a velociraptor’s. It opened its mouth wide and let out a shrill squeal.

Jack and Lydia’s mouths fell open in shock. The monster stepped towards them and squealed again, louder this time, and then lunged toward Jack, mouth open. Jack quickly moved aside, just missing being chopped in half by its teeth. “RUN!” he yelled.

The two children ran around the monster back towards the town, hearing the squeals of their pursuer right behind them, louder with each step. They entered the forest by the river and fled down the trail, dodging branches and trees as they went. But then, Jack tripped. “Don’t stop, Lydia!” he called to her as he fell. The monster was too close for her to stop and help him. It held Jack down with its leg as it bent down and grabbed Jack’s head between its teeth and pulled. Jack let out a blood curdling scream, which was abruptly cut off as his head was rent from his body. Lydia collapsed soundlessly onto the leaves blanketing the trail at the sight of her friend’s blood spouting from his neck and lost consciousness as the alien being stooped again for his right arm.

The grotesque animal, if it could be called an animal, finished its meal, crunching on the bones, cartilage, and all, using his blood to wash down the body, leaving no trace that Jack had ever existed. It nudged the comatose Lydia, breathing on her slightly as it did, before eloping back to the riverbank. There it made a horrible squeaking noise, like that of a balloon being tied, as it folded in on itself and squeezed itself down to the size of a pebble. A pop echoed through the air as its stone casing closed over it.

A few moments after the pebble clattered back down onto the rocky riverbank, Lydia's eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment to realize she was in some sort of eerily quiet forest somewhere on a surprisingly comfortable bed of leaves. Her head was throbbing, and she had no idea what she was doing there, but the silence was deafening. There wasn't even a flutter of leaves. The last thing she could remember was a large, satisfying lunch that her mom had made for her. But that felt like so long ago. Lydia rose to her feet with her hand to her head and slowly started walking away from the matted down leaves a few feet down the trail from her, confused by the strange feeling that something was missing.

I can't believe this came out of my mind. I was thinking I could do something with this before (between lunch and getting to the river) and after. After would be something along the lines of Lydia going to a psychologist and being forced to remember everything but no one believing her and instead accusing her of killing Jack. But I'm not sure I want to make this any more horrifying than it already is. Also, I'm not sure I could do it well before the lit mag submission deadline, if I decide to submit this.

Actually I decided I don't want to submit this. I want to make a real, developed story, first. Maybe I'll submit it next year (can I do that?).

Vanity

11/01 Version:

A bee floats by on the tune of a bird
and lands on a nearby flower,
petals beckoning.
And I
watch.

I, an intruder, part of that race:
The one that created
the plane that roars overhead
disrupting
the peace.

Until I realize that
we're nature, too.

they're all living,
not thinking about
parading beauty.

no vanity here
from the flowers,
birds,
and bees.

just being.
just like us.

i'm no outsider.

Disclaimer: Still working on the title. See old versions on the Post Page

10/29 version:

Bees are buzzing, crickets are chirping and flowers are blooming.
And I
am watching.

I, an intruder, am part
of that race:
The one that created
the plane that roars overhead.
Disrupting
the peace.

Until I realize that
We're Nature, too.

They're all living.
Not thinking about
radiating beauty.

No vanity here
from the flowers,
crickets,
and bees.

Just...being.
Just like us.

I'm no outsider.

Bursley-Baits Bus

Sometimes you just need to alliterate the fuck out of some verse:

In yore-days came hither the Bursley-Baits bus, human-heavy;
the steersman stopping that I might mount, murder on my brow outwrit.
Fool-filled was that iron-steed, its seating scarce;
my steel-sword strong, 'mongst startled seat-sitters
I upraised calumnious keening: cried they oft of my man-mace's might.
Ragefully ravaged I those wretches, fell threats roaring,
balefully blasted I their bones, brain-broth drinking.
Sometime a loathsome lout the stop-string smote, anon was he swiftly slain.
“Hark!” blaired I, “No-man disembarks ere we CC Little!”
I a marauding murder-maker, a transport-terror hailed.
Soothly, all submitted to my awesome strength!

Any comments on how to make this poem more badass welcome!

A Dream Within a Dream

Cold rocks
Warm, cinnamon-scented air wafts past
The clitter-clatter of the busy workman,
aluminum keys a soft reminder of life beyond my mind.

The familiar weight presses on my throat
It crushes my windpipe in pain and shame.

“Hey, are you alright?”

A fat woman looks over her gigantic,
frothy mountain of colored ice.
A wild and beautiful thing tamed for
her flabby mouth.

“God, think she’s got enough whip cream?”
It was an agitated whisper,
something I thought another had said.

“What?”
“Ohh, nothing…” I mutter again.

I was a puppet for my thoughts.
Control was slipping,
They always seemed to have that effect.

Clictity-clack

The metal minutes tapped nicely by,
the vice squeezing my breath.
Stop staring. Say something clever.

“You look great”
I leaned slowly,
my heart re-arranging the organs in my chest.

So close the breath was warm
A tropical breeze of mint and creamy-dark coffee.

Their blue-tinted windows were dark,
So dark and enticing. They begged me.

I reached forward and stopped just short.
The annoying woman slurped the empty cup
The sound of type ceased.

Their eyes were on us.

I looked back into the universes of heaven.
I saw the same longing.
I couldn’t breathe.

Fuck this.
Did I say it aloud?

I drew us close
Our lips merged in flawless unison

Our muscles flexed,
suspense and surprise knotted in sinew.

The tension waned,
melted into time;
The strain unraveled

There, the universe in a moment.

No more cold rocks.

Read some Al Purdy, it's healthy

Clumps of Brown Hair


When it's late
And I remember her face,
Excited, flashing under
The come-and-go streetlights
Flaring past
At one hundred miles per hour
As I try to rush her home on time,
What am I supposed to say to her now?
A cold handshake and wish her the best?

Those kind words
Would come out layered
Thick in honey and venom,
A spit in the face wrapped
With a crinkled red bow,
An offered hand, septic.

That would be a disservice
To the years that slipped down
The drain, staring in the mirror
And cutting my hair
at one in the morning,
Trying to get each trace of
Months-old smell gone
With the buzz of a razor.

That ride to her house
I lied to her and said
That desk clerks die.
Clumps of brown hair
On white tile floor
And the clerks still
Have their wooden desks.

Very, Very Hungry

Last revision made at 3:51 AM, Tew's Day the thirtieth.
---
There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, though to me it sometimes seems as long ago as when the simurg ruled Sky and wyrms Earth, when visitors would come to my room late at night and dance and feast with me under the moon. This was the time when there were seasons besides winter, if only in my mind, and when I filled the night sky with singing.

That time ended for me when the visitors stopped coming, though for those others who never had visitors I think summer must have ended for the last time when the Green seized power.

I do not know what life was like before the Green, I know only that it could not have been as it is now. I do not know what it was like because I trust no one to tell me, and no one trusts me enough to tell me, and books are full of lies. The Judges (whom some call executioners when they think, foolishly, that no one is listening) have rewritten them all, as they have blocked radio signals from outside. They are fighting a war of attrition with our memories. One day all those who know what we have lost will be gone and those remaining will be as I am, orphans who remember their parents only from dreams. Then they will forget even that.



Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest! My parents were rarely at home during my younger years – away on business or pleasure, or hiding from the Green (as were so many in those years, when it was still possible to hide), or God knows. I did not. I still do not. Finally their visits dwindled away to nothingness. They had hired a wet nurse for me when I was still an infant and kept her on as a permanent nanny until her murder a decade later. If they had known that she was actually working two shifts in the City (presumably to support a family in her home country, a loving husband and laughing children and a wrinkled mother) and only ever came back to the house at three in the morning to sleep for four or so hours perhaps they would not have kept her on. Or perhaps they would have – how much, if at all, my parents cared about my wellbeing is another thing I have never truly understood.

I was thus largely alone in the familial manse for my entire childhood. Almost bereft of contact with adults, barring the few hours a day when Nana was at home, I held only a tenuous grasp on the normal and the possible. To me, thus, the first nocturnal visits were none too strange – indeed, my child's imagination conjured no less fanciful adventures during the daylight hours.

The visitors themselves were small and man-shaped, and very bright. They floated, invariably, through the window, and their own natural glow combined with that of the moon conspired to illuminate the entire room almost as well as during broad daylight, though the shadows cast by the furniture on the walls and floors were somehow thicker and blacker. They never came on cloudy nights, or on nights when the moon was not in the sky. Only later would I think to question them about this, after I had already begun to contemplate the answer. They spoke my language, albeit slowly and simply – perhaps the better to communicate with a child largely deprived of opportunities to improve his vocabulary. They had silver fur and golden eyes, and dog-like faces, and sharp teeth that glinted like rubies in the moonlight.

We would speak, as I have said, and play games – they would hide from me, or I from them, in the bowels of the house. It did not take me long to grow bored with hide and seek, as I learned quickly to identify their hiding spots from the strange, distorted shapes the shadows around them would take, like prehistoric paintings in some long-forgotten grotto. Then they would lead me outside, and these were the only times I would ever see my neighborhood, pale and shivering in the interminable winter, for Nana would not under any circumstances allow me outside of the house – perhaps in order to shield herself from suspicion that she had somehow abducted me from my real, native-born parents, but I think it more likely that the murders had genuinely caused her to fear for my safety. She loved me, I think, as I loved her, for she was the closest to a mother that I had, and I the closest to a child for her in this country.

I should speak of the murders. It is important you realize that these were not the mundane killings and disappearances that occur whenever the Green rule. By all accounts the first of the murders did indeed take place shortly after the end of the Civil War, and I am sure that most residents of the Town at first assumed them to be attributable to the change in government – the Town had changed hands many times over the course of the war, and its residents were by that time more than familiar with life under the iron law of the Judges.

Slowly, however, it became apparent that these murders were something else entirely. The Judges and their agents were clearly as baffled and frightened as the rest of the Town, seeing in the murders the last remnants of an insurgency, of resistance to God and Law. They responded as is their wont, declaring martial law or early curfews on days following attacks, and very occasionally (and for what reason save for sheer delusion I may never understand) they accused some poor migrant worker of the murders and executed him at sunrise.

I say murders, though from all accounts most of the victims were simply dogs and farm animals. What human victims there were seemed to have been selected at random, without any apparent motive or reason. Individuals out after dark, or who lived alone, or who slept near windows were the most frequent targets. None of the murders was committed with the aid of a firearm – the victims were instead eviscerated, their bodies rent open and their hearts torn out. So savage was the butchery that some suggested the murderer fed his victims to a large dog or even a tiger, though clearly this was not the case, as some of the victims were slain while their spouses slept on, oblivious until awakened by the birdless silence of morning.

Panic spread as the murders targeted humans with greater frequency. Fearing an exodus to the City or elsewhere, and the risk this would pose to the public order, the Green quarantined the Town and withdrew their Judges. I do not know what Nana did, then, to earn money, as she remained only a nocturnal visitor to the house. I suspect she may have turned to prostitution.
And I in all this? I, yet a child, remained unmindful of it all. It was at around the time of the first human murders that I stopped feeling the need to eat.

My moonlit fugues became almost a nightly occurrence, and slowly it came to pass that even on dark nights when the visitors did not come I dreamt of loping through the Town with the cold pricking my ears and tongue. Perhaps on some bright nights the visitors did not come, and I only dreamt they did. So much of what transpired on those nights belongs to the realm of dreams, who am I to begrudge it the rest?

The visitors would perch on my shoulders and whisper to me, their voices as faint as the susurrus of a tree roused by the wind from its winter's sleep (if only for a little while, for the wind is fleeting and winter long). I could never make out their words, and I suspect it would have made no difference had I been able to: they did not seem to speak so much as to breathe into me, the coolness of their breath through my ears seeming to settle upon my mind like a mist, a mist filled with images and feelings and colors, none of them coherent save the one in the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach, the one urging me ever forward. The object of this compulsion emitted a smell that I began to scent as I neared it – of crushed grass and of forests, of citrus fruits, and honey, and flowers, and life.

The source of that aroma was always a tree, but they were trees like none I have ever seen in the waking world. Some of them were very large, others smaller than bushes. They were vibrant and luminous, brilliantly green with flowers of red and pink and white, as though they were misplaced flora from that lost summertime that had once been ours. Their branches were wild and thick, giving the impression that they were not branches so much as leaf-bearing roots thrust into the air to inhale the gleaming essence of an alien world. If I closed my eyes and listened, and I often did, I could hear from within them the slow crash of waves against some secret shore, as if there existed hidden in each tree an ocean of unfathomable vastness.

The first tree was outside, in a silvery pasture along the edges of the Town, but others grew indoors or on roads and sidewalks (such is the logic of dreams). I approached the tree and my friends, flitting as they were between it and my head, told me (though not in words) what I was to do. I reached my hand into its bole (how easily the bark parted!), and grasped the bright red fruit that rested there, and brought it to my mouth, and bit deeply.

I bit deeply, and suddenly I was elsewhere: in a field of green and gold, illuminated not by the sun but by the air itself, air so bright and clear it might have been a jewel. I saw sheep and dogs and humans, and I could not tell which I was (for I was no longer in my old body), and I did not care. I heard the gentle noises of the animals, and the laughter of the humans, and everywhere the crash of waves, and I felt happiness.

At length I came back to myself, and I was far from the pasture where the tree had been, and I was singing to the moon. My friends had gone, sated, I think, by the world contained within that glorious fruit. I continued to sing my song for many hours, for it seemed the natural thing to do, until finally I made my way back to my bed, and the next night was the same, and the next. Sometimes the fruit would transport me to cities made of sand along the beach, to a lover's embrace or a father's lap, to the midst of a crowd of laughing children or the bloody exaltation of a childbirth. And for a while I was as happy as any human has ever been.

It was the night (a moonless one) after I dreamt of laughing children that Nana did not come home, and the day after I realized that she would never return. I wept and in my grief I drove away my visitors, and that was the last I saw of them.

When the moon is full I lie abed and look to the window and hope to see those quicksilver shapes come to lead me out into the night. But I know now what they were, and I know that they are gone forever. I have lived for too long scouring in vain the dregs of what has become life for even the haziest reflection of what I felt on the cold nights of my childhood. I am able no more. I am old and my heart is empty, and winter reigns over us still. I will sing to the moon one last time, though with the voice of a man, before the end.

Ticks

One minute, ten seconds. Sit on the sofa, think about life for a bit. One and five, why live on with this shit? Why take all the squalor, and late rent, and 30% interest bills piling up with a dog that shits all over the newspaper that I'm not done reading yet. 57 seconds now, where did the cute little innocent tick magnet come from? Oh yeah! 53 seconds, that bitch's bitch who had four other blind-as-a-bat bundles of joyousness. Sarah wasn't all that bad, 42, at least she was hot. My friends certainly thought I had it made, 40. She just didn't respect me though, or my space. Shit! Dog left the paper, where's the Woolite?! There--crisis averted, 27, where was I? Yeah, she was great most of the time, like Fido here, but I needed my SPACE! She didn't understand, 20, and neither did my parents. I'm not going to die anytime soon, 15, but I mean come ON! it's like they expect magic to happen, and Sarah's not magic. I finally asked for space, 6, but all I'm left with now is this lousy fleabag dog and her shit that I still have to, 2, clean up and DING! Finally, my Hot Pockets!

My second attempt at flash fiction, also written at the meeting, this time in the last 10 minutes of the writing activity. I'm glad I tried my hand at the genre.

Commute

She drives all the time, at least two hours a day she makes the commute. She lives out of the city for the kids she'll have some day, for the PTA meetings at 6, after Jane's been dropped off to soccer and Ken, or John, or Ben, or maybe Dan, is at rehearsal for the 5th grade talent show. She'll only have a ten minute drive from her home to the school then, and another fifteen on the way home, because Jane will be done with practice by then.

Then, then she will have her family home, with husband showing up with Nate by 8, and maybe play a board game on the floor of the den by the fireplace that doesn't work because the chimney's dirty again. She and husband are too busy with the kids these days, they grow up so fast with the dates and the Proms and Joe getting his license while Jane's practicing her commencement speech, and "watch the road, Matt! don't worry, we're safe, you missed the deer and we're fine. I was scared too."

She drives for him now. He's not here, not yet, not quite. Jane will have to come first; She can practically feel her kicking now as her lights follow the curve of the old familiar back-country road she takes to avoid the highway. Those lights that turn with the steering wheel. Those lights that don't quite illuminate the outside curve of the road. And the deer.

This was the first flash fiction piece I had ever written, I wrote it during the exercise on Thursday in about fifteen or twenty minutes- the prompt came from the 'Writer's Block' and was a picture of an ambulance at the scene of a bad accident.

The Seven Chairs

This is from that prompt a long long time ago when we had that amazing creepy book with the pictures and one sentence. Mine was written after the one, if you remember, that was the picture of the nun sitting in a chair, levitated in the air above the altar in a cathedral while two clerics looked up at her. I'm posting this now because it's another piece of flash fiction, and it was written in 20 minutes, proof that flash fiction is excellent for WC activities.... :) However, it hasn't really been edited much, so anything that you can offer in the way of comments is greatly appreciated.

The fifth one ended up in France. The nuns thought it was a sign from God, a warning of the second coming, and they remembered Keats. Inside their walls, secluded and slowly being eaten from the inside by fear, they did not know about the others, and it was probably best.

The third caused not fear, but awe, placed as the central feature of the Greatest Show on Earth, and the audience applauded even as the actors became convinced they were going mad. The director, refusing to succumb to the disbelief of the others, was convinced he had stumbled upon a discarded item from another act, whose director was too stupid to know its real value. As his actors rose through the air, unhindered and unsupported, he smiled and went to look after the ticket sales.

The second and forth were gifts to the twin daughters of the Emperor of China from his trusted advisor and most powerful magician, who now had become deluded that he possessed real powers. He could command the Emperor’s daughters through the air at will; after the manipulation of natural laws, what was there left to conquer? It was when he failed to bring the smaller twin back from the dead after she fell from the chair that he was executed.

The sixth was never discovered, left as it was in the middle of the desert, and having lost patience with the earth, it began to rise unprompted, until only the vultures ever knew of its existence. But the first and the last of the seven chairs remained with their maker, for he could not yet decide where to leave them.

He though, perhaps, that to cause the most distress he should place the first in the Latin Quarter of Paris, so that the intellectuals from all over the world would sob and rip out their hair and drink themselves into oblivion as the remnants of their logical world collapsed around them, driven to demise by a chair that defied gravity and moved when spoken to. But was that what he wanted? Did he truly desire that the minds of the world suddenly find no alternative but to follow the philosophy held by many that human perception was all the reality consisted of, that the laws of physics were simply created to give reason and shape to the chaos around us? Then the chairs would no longer be a source of fear, but the basis of new theories, the theories of a new world order. And perhaps then people would understand how he spent nights twisting and bending the fabric of existence until he was all but sure he was going mad himself.

He thought he would keep the seventh.

Veils

At the sound of her heels click-clacking on the green-tiled floor, heads look up to assess the newcomer. At the sight of her, gazes are dropped instantly, out of respect for her dress. Like stars on the night of the new moon, Swarovski crystals illuminate the deep black of her abaya. Rich folds fall over face, covering the slight immodesty that even the most conservative of women allow themselves. The hem of her robe sweeps the floor and men avert their eyes, ignoring the fact that it covers four-inch stilettos and a killer figure wrapped in revealing, expensive designer-wear.

A few eyes glance furtively at her, wondering perhaps, how fine her hair is, what the colour of her eyes is, or what the shape of her mouth is like. The scent of the finest oud surrounds her like an aura, enveloping her in a dream of sensual Turkey, or erotic Egypt. But the men speak respectfully towards her, their gazes lowered - their shoes a poor alternative to the mysterious persona.

A glimpse of her black-swathed visage sends a jolt through their hearts. The enigma of her face consumes them with curiosity and desire. Her husband must be a lucky man, the onlookers think. To discover her would be like receiving manna from Heaven.

And then they are rewarded. A delicate hand peeps out from the folds of the robe. A soft wrist sends shivers through their bodies. Her skin, white and ethereal, disappears as fast as it materialized leaving those around her believing that it was nothing but a dream...

Of Birds and Bees

This is from the in-club prompt for a parent telling a child about "the facts of life." Enjoy!

“Well son, sometimes two people, when they are old enough and love each other very much or pay enough, share a special hug. For the purposes of this conversation, we’ll refer to this hug as a happysicle. Now a happysicle occurs between all sorts of people, sometimes even a whole big group of them at once, we’ll get to those kinds of things later when we reach the kitty bar in Vegas in two hours.

But you see, when a man and women have a happysicle, the woman’s belly will grow and grow until she regrets ever having that 5^th tequila, and then she’ll yell at the man for forgetting to bring home the mint chocolate chip ice cream she was screaming at him to get two hours ago while the man was trying to have another happysicle with his secretary.

But ultimately a tiny new-born baby will pop out of the woman’s no-no spots, one day growing up to be a full-grown and mature adult such as myself. And that is precisely how you arrived on this fair earth; ice cream, secretary, and all. Now quick, drink the rest of this beer, I think I see a cop car coming up behind us.”

Thus begins the blurred, sometimes awkward, adventures of Damien “Did you want another shot with that?” Joel and his eight-year-old son, Jacques-de-Napoleon Joel (yes, Damien was drunk at his son’s birth).

Jacques’ mother had left the pair two years after the boy’s birth under the cough-syrup influenced impression that Damien was having an affair with a chicken sandwich. She was later quoted as saying, “That fucking sandwich can have my son, he’s the offspring of that chicken fucker anyways.”

Damien, in fact, was in a multitude of relationships and one-night-stands over the course of his marriage to the mother, often times forced to hide a lover under his bed when his wife would arrive. This would often lead to midnight threesomes in which the wife was unaware that Damien was simultaneously having sex with her as well as another woman in the middle of the dark.

On the horizon, the strip shined brightly, beckoning the two towards its sinful innards. God help us all.

OK, so after doing much research, I have two fabulous events to offer you. First is a corn maze. This will probably have to take place next Saturday, October 27 or Sunday the 28th. I think it would be best to do this in the evening (so much cooler in the dark). The maze itself is about 3 miles long, and it is absolutely amazing. However, it is located near Lansing, about 45 minutes away. So I will need to know EXACTLY how many people are coming and how many people can drive. Leave a comment letting me know that you are interested and which day is best for you.

We can also make a trip to the Dexter Cider Mill if there is enough interest. Downtown Dexter is about 25 minutes from Ann Arbor, so again, we will be carpooling. This will probably take place the first weekend of November (3rd and 4th) or the weekend after that (10th and 11th). Leave a comment if you are interested in this event. Thank you!

Raindrops

Written and workshopped this summer, edited slightly since then.

The staccato rhythm of rain on the windowsill
Keeps me trapped inside
Because at the moment, this isn't as bad
As having wet sneakers

I stare at the curve of your forehead
Yearning to plant a gentle kiss on it or even
Just caress it with the affection I feel
I've always felt

But I know the rules
That's not okay anymore

You've fallen asleep on the couch
As you're so fond of doing
And are oblivious to the familiar sounds of
Jack McCoy putting away another killer

In a happier world
I would give you that kiss, or that caress
And you would ask me to spend the night
Or at least the rain would fade away
And I could walk home in peace

I'd settle for an umbrella, to be honest

But in this world
I gaze longingly at your lips for
Just a few more seconds
And I walk out into the rain

As I ease the door shut, I idly wonder
Why the raindrops taste like salt tonight

Feste's Folly

This is the first part of a novel that I have been working on of which I am going to publish segments sporadically. It is based on the character of Feste the fool from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. When the play begins, Feste has returned from some absence whose kind and duration are not specified. My novel deals mainly with what happened to him during this absence and why he both left and returned.Thank you to my group today for your helpful suggestions.

Chapter 1

He was drunk.

There was really nothing else to it. The young man sat at the bar on his wooden stool, completely and thoroughly inebriated. The barkeep glanced at him and shook his head sagely. These types came in often. Young, idealistic fools disillusioned by love and labor. Some of them went to the bottle and never came back. If he could talk to them in such a way, he would say that the world was bigger than their problems. But it wasn’t his place. He went on wiping mugs.

It is at least fair to say that the man at the bar would not deny he was a fool. He knew it well.

However, right now he didn’t actually think of anything. His eyes dazed into an unfocused cavern of dust and stars. His mind dabbled over physical proceedings like so many strings on a mandolin. A pluck here, a strum there. Lovely music played in his ears. It was the kind of stuff he’d heard before. A long, long time ago. Too long to remember. Perhaps a bit more ale would help him. He held out his hand toward the barkeep.

“Not for you, sir,” the barkeep responded levelly. “Not until you’ve paid for what you’ve had, man.”

The man at the bar swore and wondered why the barkeep’s head kept swiveling. Cursed barkeeps. They just wanted to empty his pockets and leave him in misery. He slapped his hand upon the bar and glared at the keep.

“Now, fellow, no need to get angry. Just pay the money, is all.”

At this point two big, loud townsmen entered the tavern and sat themselves next to the man. They were the kind who liked to show their muscles and demonstrate their belching ability. They spoke with far more volume than necessary, about some girl. Their very presence irritated the young man, and one of them was taking up more than his share of the bar space.

“Get me some ale,” one barked heavily.

The young man was vexed. He clattered his mug on the wood.

“My drink! My drink! I asked y’ for it, before these rascals come in. Come now, fill me mug anon!”

The big man next to him growled menacingly.

“Eh, you there, watch your tongue or you'll be sorry. Now, we ordered first so serve us first, that's right, barkeep.”

The barkeep knew what the start of a brawl looked like, but he had to serve the new customers. He reached for a couple mugs.

“Now!” The young man yelled. “What’re y’ doin’? Fill my drink. Pay no ‘tention to these dogs, these usurpers a’ thrones. Anon!”

At this both big men stood, and the closer punched the young man in the stomach. He was slight and weak and toppled right over.

“Now we warned you! Do you want more of that?”

The man could do nothing. The ale broke in waves over his mind, and the other men’s faces changed. He babbled without a thought.

“You block, you! Mal—you—worms, all y’! T’rrible blockhead. Ah, you, me brother, ‘re ‘n ig—nor—a—mus. Yes sir, signora. That is what be true. Oh what a tune, what a ninny! Ninnies, all. The twelfth day of December, lady, lady….”

By this time, the big men were upon him and he could not defend himself. His head hit the bar with an interesting cracking sound. At some point, he knew he’d been dragged outside because he felt sharp wetness of snow in his lungs. Strange, how he felt so warm and soft while the big man kept hitting him. He thought he might like a nap, just a quick one, sir….

The men finally left him against the side of the tavern, eyes closed and mouth stuck in a screwed smile. The pretty snow floated down and melted on his bloodied body.

A sound came out of his mouth, no more than a whistle of air.

“Oh mistress…mine…where are…you…roaming….”

Then silence.

Inside the tavern, the barkeep grimaced as he wiped blood off the corner of the bar.

untitled

I
it is somewhat intoxicating absorbing what you don't want to absorb, the mathematics of the life you're wishing to lead. the economy of words is lost on you, you spurt out words you don't want to be said, and in these exhilarating moments, you wish for someone to save you, take you away. or perhaps, just take your breath away.

II
between the hello and goodbyes, we seek comfort in the approximation of each human quality that we tend to deduce. between the polite smiles and awkward handshakes we find in the touch that lasted a second, a closeness, a sharing of melancholic sentiments. we are alone, in our worlds, apart, and yet intimate.

III
You.
you took my breath away.

IV
in these ways of love, as they used to say, amor vincit omnia.

V
and there we are.

*****
I brought this for workshop tonight and got really helpful feedbacks :) . Just wondering what everyone else think about this.

the latin words up there mean 'love conquers all'

On the Radio

I would love lots of help on this one, I love the idea of the piece and I during classes have caught myself writing more lines to this piece of Poetic-Prose instead of taking notes.

So any suggestions, ESPECIALLY things to work on, would be greatly appreciated,


On The Radio

My friend is on the radio

Making me cry a little

With every dedication

To all of us who left

Yet we can't seem to call him

To tell him that we love him

The "On Air" button flashes red

But all the phones are dead

Am I next?

Life tells me let go

But teacher can't you see

He was my hero first

I just watched him grow

Tell me to stop breathing

Cause I just might do that

But don't tell me not to love

Chorus:

God, don't forget me

Don't tell me there is no home

Lie to me if you have to

I don't want to feel alone'

There is more to it, but its really long so you can find it on my blog

http://doubtdedication.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much in advance

Rick

ओं थे रेडियो

2007 Lit Mag Submission Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for submissions to the 2007 Writers' Community Literary Magazine:

**NEW DEADLINE: NOON ON SUNDAY NOVEMBER 4TH** (see below for updated editorial staff meeting times)

1. All submitters must be Writers' Community members. Each member is welcome to submit up to 5 pieces.

2. All submissions must be in some way associated with the group: i.e. written during writing activities, workshopped in a meeting, or posted on the blog for comments.

3. Submissions need not be only from this semester; as long as the provisions stated in guideline 2 are fulfilled, older pieces are also welcome. Feel free to re-submit updated versions of pieces you submitted to last year's Lit Mag or spoken word CD that weren't chosen for either.

4. Submitting to us does not in any way mean you're turning over rights to your work: we will either publish it in this issue of the magazine or not use it at all, and in either case you're still welcome to submit it elsewhere. If for any reason some edits become necessary, we will consult you before changing anything.

5. Each piece must have a title (or else we'll call it Untitled) and be not more than 3 single-spaced pages long in 12-point Times font.

6. Pieces must be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to writerscommunity@gmail.com. Do not put your name in the word document, but please include it (as you would like it to appear in publication) in the email.

7. All submissions must be in by 11.59 p.m. on Friday November 2nd. You can start submitting now!

If you have any questions that aren't addressed here, leave a comment to this post or email me at cmanisha@umich.edu. You can also email me with specific questions about particular pieces.

(updated)
**If you're interested in editing the Lit Mag, here's the editorial staff meeting schedule:
Meeting 1: 8.00 p.m. Sunday Nov 4th
Meeting 2: 6.00 p.m. Tuesday Nov 6th
Meeting 3: 6.30 p.m. Thursday Nov 8th (before regular meeting)
Meeting 4: 6.00 p.m. Friday Nov 9th (tentative)

All editorial staff meetings will take place in the TAP ROOM (Union basement).**

Sky Reconsidered

That night we found
Solace
In the green drip
At the bottom of a bottle,
A subtle touch
To sever,
Each drop,
A passing cloud.

You convinced me
That my orange-cream
Sky was no such thing,
That it was diluted red.
At that moment
I could see
The rose petals
Twist through
Frozen space,
Wobble, curtsy, sputter,
Then layer the earth
In their soft
Floral glow.

Change

The world is changing

Is it? I see nothing different

Ah, but humankind varies

Do they? I hear no difference

You must see that the planet shifts

Does it? I feel nothing different

The world is changing

There are more colors in life

Beauty multiplies

Art becomes the living as the living grow stale

Humankind does vary

That man and that woman

They cannot be the same

In all aspects they are individual

The planet is shifting

Earthquakes, volcanoes, weather

Landscape changes and society grows

The natural world trembles and humans live on

The world is changing

It is… everything adjusts

Ah, but humankind varies

They do… I hear them bicker and argue

You must see that the planet shifts

It does… and nothing stays the same

Here is Where my Mind and Body Lie

Here is Where my Mind and Body Lie

Here is where my mind and body lie, but it is not where they belong

They follow the motions, follow the purpose, but they follow blind

Their blindness of the world, the reality that flows by,

Can only be caused by the loss of their organ of nonsense and illusion

And what is reality if fantasy is lost, but a drudgery of hard truth

Oh, how can this be found, this fantasy and disparity

But through a replacement of the lost organ, a new hope

Or connection with the lost, the one detached, to find the link

Between the past and present, and its contrasting fantasies,

To make the future so bright and find the line

The line is found, oh long thin thread of desire,

How it separates the real from not, and not at all

How can it be followed, but with the lost organ

Only a heart will do, to find the me that finds you

The heart was there all along, but with the one I love,

To keep me centered on the path of life,

To give me hope in times of trouble,

To remind me of the reality of the present,

To inspire my fantasies of the future,

To ground my thoughts when they flew too far,

And to love her when times get hard.

Some Day

Another I just found in my random writings folder- I don't remember writing some of this... hope I didn't steal it from someone. Here it is:

You’ll find me at the edge of time

The end of all things

The beginning of what’s to come

You’ll find me enduring the fiercest storm

Wind lashing my face

Rain flooding my bones and drowning my soul

You’ll find me kneeling before nothing

Penance paid to virtue

Soon I’ll find my destiny among those who’ve gone before

You’ll find me again, after all of this is through

I’ll laugh and smile to the breaking point

Someday I will have my time