Please check out my short story sequel to the classic myth
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Category: Fantasy
Prey Tell
What is it that keeps
your heart in chains
of darkness, graves,
voids, abysses,
and things
that cut and kill and burn?
Do not your
sleep-filled eyes
behold the sun?
the clouds?
the stars?
What calls your mind
to embrace
the gibbering shadows
that dance in
ever-tightening circles,
venturing up
to block your view of heaven,
laying waste to your
body and mind?
Yet in you
is the seed of song,
of love,
creativity.
Work the fire.
Forge the axe
that sunders darkness
with light
and sets you free.
Prey,
tell us you
are game.
Midnight Confessions
I pour the blood
from my heart
This ink
This lead
These pixels
Resurrected in
the empty church
of my life
Briefly seen,
my life imagined
as I once saw it
Fleeting
the feelings
of my flesh,
the senses of
my being
I kneel
in the empty, fragrant
darkness
The small wooden window
that leads to where I toss my sins
like wedding rice
never opens
I say them
all the same
They pile
like decaying petals
at my feet
multi-hued
multi-faceted
radiant with putrescence
They smell of illicit love
drunken torture
anger and loneliness
rage and despair
I press them to my heart
to stop the bleeding
absolving myself
resolving never to do
these things again
And so the risen sun
forgives me
But I have chosen death.
Untethered
Back then, the pit as warm red embers glow
But soon the fire and clawed, webbed wings will grow
The chains will melt that bind me far below
And soon for you, he’ll make the hot wind blow
See how against the moonlit sky he soars
Forgetting steely bars and oaken doors
The ship is no escape, set down your oars
There’s thunder, flame and lightning in his roars
See now the fire raining from the sky
So hot it cooks the skin and blinds the eye
And in the slaughter’s wake there is no why
Perhaps the flame will spare you if you cry
Untethered are we, fire in the cloud
As flying low we skim across the crowd
Our hearts within us passionate and proud
Our battle cries are ringing long and loud
When the alarum bells toll, run and hide
The armies intertwine and fight with pride
But warfare ever was a prickly bride
And vanquished now, we wash out on the tide
What sealed our fate remains a mystery
And now we are a different form of free
It struck us odd because we couldn’t see
That love is best to fight your enemy
Broken Bells
Hear the toll of broken bells
Over hillsides
Down the dells
Angels sing in seven hells
Dead things crawl up out of wells
Demons crack their human shells
Ringing din at midnight swells
Night air’s rife with graveyard smells
Devils laugh discordant knells
At the sound of broken bells
Cara-Cell
As autumn dies,
the bitter night wind
seeps into the stone walls
of what has become my
new home.
Hope of leaving
abandoned me.
She peers into the defeat
replete within my gaze,
and smiles
with
pleased and mocking scorn.
Dressed in midnight,
she comes,
a cream-skinned shadow
in silvered fog,
and tells me her name
is
Cara,
as if I cared,
as if defeat had somehow
changed to affection.
A Murder follows her,
and obeys her every gesture.
Her lacquered black nails point,
and soft eyes are
plucked like jewels from bone settings,
the screams
drowned by the eldritch music
of their raucous cries.
Why do you stay? she whispers in my mind.
Do you not see there are no stones to bar your path?
No chains, no locks, no guards to block your way?
Blind,
I stumble past
the warring scents
of lavender and carrion,
to roam
the shrouded night.
Exhausted,
helpless,
and alone,
by dawn
I find myself
returning
once again,
to where she freed me.
And barefoot, shivering,
crying ice-laced tears,
I walk the frigid riverbed
back to my
Cara-cell.
Winged Moonlight
This pale raven,
prepared to shine,
this ivory plumage
s p a n n e d
beneath
the cobalt sky.
Alabaster wings
scatter stars,
red-gold talons
grip tight
the silver moon.
In silent flight
rising
above the
shadowed world,
breaking chains
of spirits,
herald of the
mist,
and emissary
of a
sunless realm,
nevermore
to shine.
Chrysalis
Within the dark green chrysalis
I see the torchlight’s glare.
As I walk down the flame-lit hall
I feel the demon’s stare.
He’s hidden and he’s silent
but he’s watching all the same.
He’s changing into something
that will want to play a game
of cat and mouse and hide and seek.
I’m not up to the task.
I’ll have to kill him quickly,
so no one will ever ask
“Who won the battle tween the two?”
I’ll win it handily,
And slice the chrysalis apart
and finally be free.
Night Roads
This is a WIP currently being written in serial form at the link below.
Please check it out, and feel free to comment.
Be honest, but kind.
If you troll me, I will send zombie vampires to hunt you. In a novel, of course….
We all know there’s no such thing as zombie vam– (OW! Get back down there, you stinking–!)
My Floozy Muse
My desk lamp was flickering, and the laptop screen had a crack in it, but I was determined to finish this thing, once and for all.
The honeyed whiskey glowed invitingly in the bottle I opened, not bothering with a glass.
I could hear the rain on the window, and the slushy sound of tires on the shiny black road spattered with neon down below. Two cats fought in an alley, and people were out who’d otherwise go stir crazy indoors.
I had nothing but whiskey and nothing else but this novel, and nobody until she appeared. Smooth, slender hands slipped over my shoulders and chest, and a tongue tip flicked my earlobe.
“Maxine.” I grinned like an psychiatric inmate. “Long time no kiss.”
She laughed, soft and low, like a piano in the dark after midnight. “Against the rules, handsome, you know that.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
She poured herself a drink, and sat down, crossing legs from Heaven.
“Whatcha got goin here, sweetie?”
“A crossroads.”
“Ahhh,”she said, covering her ears in mock pain. “Honey don’t use polysyllables this time of night; they hurt my head.”
“Anything for you, cookie. I’m stuck.”
“That’s better. How can I help?”
I told her where I was in the story, and where I wanted to go next.
She came over, sat in my lap, squirmed around a bit, getting comfortable.
“Having fun?” I said.
“Loads, sugar. Oops,” she put her hand over her mouth. “Was that naughty?”
“Not even close. What’s with the wings?”
“A girl can’t accessorize?”
“Probably, if I knew what it meant.”
She laughed, kissed me quick on the lips, tasting like cinnamon cigarettes.
“I like you, Al. Wish I knew why.”
“Because I made you up?”
She considered that, her finger in the corner of her mouth.
“Nah, that’s not it, ’cause you can’t be sure who made up who.”
“‘Whom.’ That story’s been done, Maxine. Let’s get to work.”
“So grumpy,” she squirmed a bit more and leaned over, looking at the screen.
I poured another drink; she moved her lips when she read. How’d I miss that?
“Ah, right here. That’s where the problem is. I see it.”
“Can you help?”
She put an arm around my shoulder. “Anything for you, cookie.”
I don’t know how long we worked, but the bottle grew empty, the page grew full, and the sky grew lighter.
“Oh, sweetie, I have to go.”
“Bathroom’s over–”
“No, Al. I mean it’s time for me to leave.”
“Aw, c’mon Maxine…”
She kissed me, and we both tasted like honey-whiskeyed- cinnamon cigarettes.
“Baby,” I said, catching my breath when she was done.
“You know the rules.” We said it together, like schoolkids: “No hanky-panky!”
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“You just did.” She winked at me.
“That hanky-panky thing, is that sex?”
She put her finger in the corner of her mouth again.
“I don’t think so….”
“Good.”
“Whee!” she turned on my lap, facing me, and my chair went over backward…
She stayed with me through the morning too, but not a lot got done.
Well, not a lot of writing…but that’s another story.
Beyond Panic 