Morning Poem

Thinks are a bit crazy out there. Anxious, scared, tired, angry…just few of the slew of emotions I’ve felt the last couple weeks. I know I’m not alone.

Trying to stay optimistic though. I am – far as I know – healthy. My financial situation is not desperate. Bellingham has had GORGEOUS weather the past few days. Faelina is still her sassy self (and quite pleased by that fact). And – most important of all – my family and friends are all safe. I hope with my entire soul they stay that way.

I figured I’d share something today, it has been a few weeks after all. ‘Choose something lighthearted’ I said to myself. Yet, as I read through my entire book of poems & stories I’ve written this past year, I found only a few pieces that were even remotely on the bright side. And they were all terrible. I am not just saying that.

So, you get the ominous poem I wrote this morning. It was inspired by a book I’m currently reading. The author of said book found her inspiration for it’s writings in a journal she picked up at an estate sale. Writing inspires writing -inspires more writing. Art is amazing like that.

~*~

A general breaking up of body

Sugar tracing tracks through blood

I lay my gentle flowers down

Watch them dissolve into wind

The sky unfolds with rusting stardust

~*~*~

I wish for you all peace, health and so much love in the coming weeks 💜

~*~

Walking

Another 100 word story - with some extras letters tacked on to make complete. The prompting line for this piece "Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left" was hard for me. I wrote multiple stories; hated each and every one. Then, finally, the night before I was to meet up with my writing friend, I wrote from my truth. Delved into my struggles with over-exercise. My knowledge that walking is not always a good thing, nor a gift. It can sometimes be torment.

So, without further ado...

~*~

I walk through streets of bloody leaves. Their pulsing so white hot, merely moving past them burns. Yet inside, beneath my skin, I'm freezing. A frigid cold; it scalds the very lining of my heart. 

They say each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left. As I look back at the desiccated remains of my childhood, I have to wonder what fool ever saw fit to spew such nonsense.  

Because when your mind has stolen your freedom, has ripped away your poetry and reason, has encased each step with jail bars so impossible to break you would shatter your soul trying...walks become nightmares. A reminder of power lost, of joy destroyed. 

I no more own each step than I can grasp the whole of the wind and yank. 

I can only keep walking.

~*~*~

... and the game began anew

Last time I said I'd post something cheerier. I lied. I don't do cheery very will. This is another 100 words story. Well, 100 + a few additions I felt were necessary.

Just about anyone who's spent more than an hour in my presence knows that I view the world through a lens of magic. When some people envision magic and faeries, they call up images of golden rainbows and happy Tinkerbells. I adhere to a darker (and to my mind more realistic) idea - that magic is dark and, infinitely dangerous. And faeries, if they're real, rule the world wearing cloaks spun from nightmares.

~*~

In a dark dark wood,

in a dark dark world,

the darkest shadows wove their deepest schemes.

With whispered words they sent songs to the stars

and to every child’s silver dreams. 

“Come” they sang

“we’ll dance above the ground

and sew you clothes

made of candle flames”.

“Follow”

they crooned

“our reveling road,

forget your homes,

forget your names”.

And every sleeping child heard

and left their homes for the frozen night.

They stepped and slipped

atop ice and coal,

were kissed by magic

that cut like knives. 

When all at last

had reached the stones,

the faeries bloody smiles grew...

and the game began anew

~*~*~*~

At Dusk They Pour From The Sky

The writing agreement that inspired my last post has continued on, with today being the fourth 100 word story my new writing friend and I have shared with each other. We've expanded the definition of 100 words to be '100 words + the words from the chosen line', so it's now 100 words more or less.

This week's line was 'At dusk they pour from the sky'. Those words are the beginning of the novel 'All The Light We Cannot See', a beautifully rendered tale about the horrors and atrocities that occurred during World War II.

I wrote four different stories from this line. The one I shared with my writing friend was different from the words below. All of them were etched with darkness, perhaps the fact of the war seeped into my subconscious as I wrote. Perhaps it was the increasingly dark nights that accompany winter. Or perhaps it's just that I lean towards the darkness with much of my writing. Likely a combination of all three. Make of it what you will.

*~*

At dusk they pour from the sky. Cruel, cheerless drops that slice through skin and soul like

unwashed memories of black guilt. I push on. Trudging through the luckless mud, my brain

gone numb from bitter chill. 

I’m thankful for it. The cold. I use it to pretend, I can forget the truth. Shuffling deeper into

gloom, I’m careful to keep my eyes cast down, attempting to dissuade the whispers from

ripping out my heart.

Futile. 

For I see them always, the nightmares. Those broken stars, their cleaved screams,

never cease. Nights of blood are my destiny. Dawn will come, with it death.

I shall never escape. 

~*~*~

....I'll post something cheerier next time...

...Isn't it Pretty To Think So

Last Sunday, I spoke with someone about writing and we entered into an agreement with one another - to each write a story in only 100 words, with the last of them being '...isn't it pretty to think so'. And then on Friday night, while struggling to come up with something - anything; I glanced over and saw a drawing that caused my mind to trip over itself with glee. This is the result...

~*~*~*~

Between the seconds of midnight meeting twilight they gather ‘round a copse of trees no human has realized. 

Branches twist, dripping sapphire.  Dandelion carpets drift around wishes and diamond. Candles carved with the moon’s tears shimmer - dreamily hopeful. Red mushrooms giggle as the silver moss stretches infinite arms across the forgotten, fallen table that glitters berries, twinkles nuts, and unravels fitful fiddleheads. 

They have gathered - Fox, Faery, Owl and Stag to feast and share their joy, their wistful secrets. To celebrate life.

You say I speak false? That I know only lies? 

Maybe...perhaps…but...isn’t it pretty to think so.

*~*~*




*

12 Years

I was a bit of a mess yesterday. I usually am a bit off the last week of October, as memories of my dad and last few days of his life blossom up in the forefront of my mind. This year though, his absence feels sharper and it turned my (already not so organized) thoughts into chaos. I have a few notions as to why this is so, but want that picture to become clearer to me before I speak of it to anyone else. I know I'm not alone in this. Everyone who's lost some one they loves, lives the rest of their life inside a tidal wave of grief. It ebbs, then returns, then ebbs again. It's a brutal form of beauty, but so is the rest of life, really.

Yesterday was not pleasant; it was tidal wave masquerading as a tsunami. But today the salt and sting of it's waters ebbed and I felt peace. I hiked between gold sunbeams and ancient trees; I heard the wind singing it's symphony; saw fall leaves engaging in their favorite dance. I turned 'round a corner an came face to face with a Barred Owl; I leaned back on my heels, soaking up it's silent mystery, it's unparalleled elegance. Marveled at how lucky I was to have seen it, that it let me see it. Today I walked through the forest and felt thankful. I know that would have made my dad happy.

He's been gone for 12 years now. This, below, is not really a poem, not really an essay. Just a collection of a few random reminiscences, mostly good ones. 12 years is a long time, but I will always remember him. 

~*~

Some days the memories just slam into you

A runaway train refusing to stop…

Learning a David’s screwdriver, isn’t a real thing

Just something made up because it’d be funny

A sci-fi trade paperback, a surprise gift before a camp trip

The handing over of a thin silver, washer with a random

awe filled comment on it’s beauty, simplicity

A hand built bed, and swing set and dog sled

Sharing the biggest cinnamon roll I’ve ever seen

Late summer and two weeks spent living off of Pasta-roni and foosball and the movie Rat Race

The explanations of math problems, which I promptly forgot

The examples of knots that now evade me

The discussion of truck types, surprisingly still remembered

Watching 2 Fast 2 Furious when I turned 16, a mad search through the theater isles

For a rolling tube of chapstick

Christmas morning – cheese mice – a look of utter disbelief

A golf game when I was 6 and the golf cart I was allowed to drive

And years later when we argued over the stick shift I didn’t want to drive

Giving gallons of whole milk as a gift, because he was impossible to shop for

Tasting cheesy eggs for the first time on an early childhood fishing trip

Lattes from Blondies, at least one a day, buying me one if I'd drive to get his

5 lb bag upon 5 lb bag of Good & Plenty and Peanut M&M’s

Observing, in our Park City garage, a deer being skinned

It’s small antlers resting on my desk for years after

Listening crazy story of how, on a different trip, years and years before

The truck burst into flames and setting the Wyoming hillside ablaze

Dip netting in the frigid waters of the Kenai,
the excitement over blizzards at the Soldotna Dairy Queen
the day he walked into a Taco Bell and ordered a Frosty, and the look on the poor girls face as she hesitantly suggested he was in the wrong restaurant

The many, many toy construction vehicles that lined the desk of each office

And the even more plentiful pictures of us that filled those same spaces
hearing someone say they never saw someone with so many pictures of their kinds in their office

Building a model of the Pekin drawbridge out of popsicle sticks for a school project, he was definitely more excited about that than I was

The mention, while hiking through the sweltering Arizona desert,  

that after a winter spent working on the frozen iron of the new Pekin bridge,

he would never complain of heat again…

…A few train tracks of memories, so many thousands more…

I can still hear his voice, if I think really hard

I still listen for the shriek of his summoning whistle

His nicknames for me are stitched into the fabric of my heart

The words ‘Follow Your Bliss’ echo through my soul.

I miss you dad. So much. i love you.

~*~*~

Faery Poem

It's been a few weeks since I've shared any writing; and many, many months since I've warned you of faeries. So here you are, enjoy ... and be careful of the shadows that call to you at night...

*~*

Some faeries are all light and song

and with them nothing will go wrong

But others dance with blackened souls

and laugh when fire bites your toes

  

So be wary if one night

a faery beckons with delight

For should you follow, should you go

you might never make it home

~*~*~