The force behind the hand grows tired.
The field where words roared and played
is barren of life,
full of bare trees, hard soil, muddy snow,
lost time, and regret.
I own the irretrievable
and the unacceptable.
My idle hands have doomed
my legacy to obscurity.
I tell myself
I do not care,
and wonder why
I’m weeping.
In the flurried, frenzied madness
are the words that never come.
There’s a sorrowful, silent sadness
like a rain soaked, broken drum.
When your spirit’s badly broken,
when the mocking page stares back,
and you’re reaching, reaching, reaching
down a hole that’s cold and black,
When the thirst is quenched within you
and imagination dies,
And the fire’s banked inside you,
no one’s there to hear your cries.
Go and order a tequila.
Go and throw a ball or two,
and somewhere between the sun and moon,
the words return to you.
For they never really leave you.
You’re a writer, after all.
When you give them life and purpose
they will answer to your call.
In the frenzied, flurried madness,
they will answer to your call…
It is here where The Land of Dreams blends in with the Sea of Reality.
I scoop the earth-blackened waters of its banks, only to see it slip through my fingers.
In the distance of my fantasy worlds,
Castles crumble.
Palaces burn.
and things that aren’t pretentious about
their brutality
break the spine of humanity
over their knees.
The crack of shattered, severed bone sounds like an
exclamation mark on the period of life.
No escape.
See? The gift abandons you, as a
faithless priest
his calling.
The candles in the temple are extinguished,
And canticles and prayers rise in supplication,
Only to get trapped in the webs and rooks of
defiled, unholy rubble, and desecrating doubt.
The hand trembles with pain,
wrinkles with age.
The fight is all-encompassing now,
and strength is leeching, leaking, leaving…
The Sea of Reality has the remnants of
wasted time, missed chances, lost loves
in your wake,
even as mines of potential and buoys of pleasure
come into view.
The sun perpetually sets on the horizon.
Fog will coat the water’s surface,
and the stars change position and darken
as you navigate.
The rudder of the pen skips,
The oar of the pencil splinters and cracks
even as it shrinks.
The laptop lighthouse can no longer illuminate
the safe harbor of your hopes.
Mortality and eternity mix and war,
the storm clouds full of nightmares realized,
the cirrus clouds of curried wisps of daydreams
fading to mist in the mind’s ever-changing weather.
A dark and silent bay awaits,
with no guiding stars,
no turning of the hourglass,
no sailing with the tide.
So then, captain, it comes to this:
Do you run aground, leaping safely to shore?
Do you founder and break on the coral and stone,
clinging to what remains?
Do you let go of the wheel of your life,
drifting into nothingness?
Or do you smooth out one last piece of parchment
like a billowing sail,
and once more
take up the stout and stubby oar
for the last voyage?
You turn your back on
the futility of letters.
‘Try,’ they keep saying.
‘You must keep trying.’
So I cut back, and set fire,
not to plant, but purge,
yet the seedlings land
inside the spongy soil.
With sustenance unseen,
they wait their seasons,
testing the moments.
Heart and mind,
Soul and spirit,
are made verdant.
Pods of ideas,
Sprouts of imagination
flourish, rising and twisting
through the lattices.
They pollinate on paper,
and pluck pixels from our fingers,
working the pages of trees,
buzzing among the LED bulbs.
The pencil is the silvered scythe,
the poem reaped in harvest,
and placed on your table,
steaming and new
before your eyes.
Savor it, for it is one of a kind.
A hint of autumn chill in the late summer air battled the smells of gasoline, bus exhaust, homeless people, cigarettes, stale urine, and the ubiquitous Cinnabon, a risky purchase down here at the bus terminal.
It was drizzling, and made the neon reflections shiny and the stones drab.
I bought two coffees and started searching, not knowing if I’d find her here.
We hadn’t spoken in a while, and I guess she got tired of waiting for my call; her message said she was leaving, and she hoped I understood.
I did, but I couldn’t let her go.
Checking the departure board there were eight buses leaving at this ungodly hour.
I found her in the last one. She’d bought a cheap green poncho that offered little protection against the elements, and the hood was over her hair. She was so lost in thought she didn’t look up as I approached.
An old blind man was sitting down from her on the bench, silently rocking back and forth.
“Dabria?” I held out a cup. Surprised, she looked up at me with those large, beautiful brown eyes that always seemed to shimmer like a sun-kissed lake.
She didn’t smile, or take the coffee. She just regarded me like someone she recognized and wasn’t sure she liked.
I proffered the cup again.
She took it, popped the lid, took a sip, and made a face.
“Sorry. Bus station coffee.”
She only nodded, then remembered her manners. “Thank you.”
I looked up at the terminal clock that had a booze ad on it; fifteen minutes until her bus left.
I said, “What are you—“
She held up a hand to stop me. “Don’t.”
“Dabria…”
“I said, ‘don’t.’ You shouldn’t have come down here.”
Time was short, and there was no time to filter what I felt. “I don’t want you to go.”
“No? Well, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’ve been writing with Nightshade—“
“I know where you’ve been. I’m having trouble understanding why you think I should stick around when she gets all your attention.”
“Because I always come back to you; you were the first, and I’m no less devoted to you now than when we started.”
“That’s a lie.”
I sighed. “If it were, Dabria, would I be here now?”
That gave her pause. “I…I guess not.”
The rain grew steadier, and somewhere in the conversation we got the blind man’s attention; he still rocked, just not as much, his head slightly tilted.
The wind harder, making the diverse odors swirl in a nauseating, miasmic, malodorous dance.
“I still need you, Dabria. We’re not close to finished, and I’ve started so late.
“Please, come home.”
“And Nightshade?”
“She’s going to be part of my life, too. Just not the main part. With you, I write what’s on my heart. With her, it’s what’s in my imagination.”
She smiled. “You do have a great imagination. I like tapping into it, too. But if I have your heart…”
“Then don’t go.”
The old blind guy had stopped rocking, and started to smile.
I reached out my hand.
She put the coffee in it, smiling. “Throw that out.”
Laughing, I tossed it, and gave mine to the blind guy. “Fresh cup.”
“Thank you. Glad you got your muse back.”
“Thanks. Me too.” I held out my hand again, and Dabria took it.
I kissed the back of it. “I promise—“
“Don’t.” She kissed me.
As we walked back to the entrance, I thought back to what the old man had said: Glad you got your muse back.
I looked back over my shoulder.
The coffee cup was on the bench, and he was getting on the bus.
“How did he—?”
“Don’t,” Dabria said.
I shook my head. “I won’t. Coffee?”
“When we get home, mister. You’re going to write all night.”
“Lucky me.”
She smiled, giving me a sideways glance from those incredible eyes. “More than you know.”
A page a day,
the sages say,
is healthy for to write.
A poem, a story, ditty,
typed by day or
penned by night.
But sages are not writers
so no matter what they say,
when Muses seize you
by the throat,
you find you will obey.
So write whene’er you want to friends,
and write whene’er you can.
And listen to your Muses,
for a sage is just a man.
(*art by Sam Kennedy)
Still wanting to fight, Sora begged Chimatsu to continue.
Seeing her determination, and going against his better judgment for the sake of her father, he agreed.
The winter months flew by in a haze of pain, adrenalin, and feelings of inadequacy.
His litany of her wrongs seemed endless:
You’re fighting in anger.
You hesitate.
Your defense is lacking.
You’ve been captured.
You’ve been killed.
One day he did not come out to train her.
She practiced her forms alone, considering it a test of some kind, looking at the door to his swaybacked house, but it didn’t open.
The next day she practiced her weaponry, knowing he was watching, but nothing happened to make him open the door.
The next day she practiced longer, but he still stayed inside.
Enough of this!
She went to confront him as the day was ending.
She raised her fists to pound the door, only to find it was already open a crack.
A little thrill of fear made her peer inside, thinking she might find him dead.
He was sitting in front of a large, warm fire, drinking tea and eating a bowl of rice and some savory fish.
Her mouth watered and her stomach growled.
He knew she was there, but didn’t acknowledge her; he offered no food nor a seat by the fire.
“What’s going on, sensei?”
He set his bowl and cup down on a tray, then leaned back and steepled his fingers under his chin as he gazed into the fire but spoke to her.
“It’s simple enough; I can no longer teach you.”
“But I’ve been practicing!”
He shook his head. “To no foreseeable end. You lack skill, Sora, not heart. But in an actual battle, you’d be among the first to fall.
He sighed. “I’ve already written to your father. I will take no more of his money, and waste no more of my time, or yours.”
“So you’re saying…”
“What I’ve said before: the life of a warrior is not for you.”
“So what am I to do?”
“Rest, heal, spend the night, and in the morning, return to your father’s house.”
“I meant about my fighting.” She moved in front of him, blocking the fire’s warmth.
His eyes seemed to look through her as if she wasn’t there at all; her world was shrinking, and he wouldn’t even look at her.
“What am I to do about my fighting?” she asked again, her voice hitching.
He surmised that she needed to hear him say it, and as much as he didn’t want to, her refusal to leave forced it out of him.
He looked at her then, his eyes sad and somber, the firelight dancing in their depths; to her he looked like an ancient god in transition.
“Fight no longer. Marry, and raise children, a son perhaps; one who can take the road you seek.
“Your skills are adequate, but they need to be superior, and for that, you have not the skill.”
Her fists clenched, she began to pace. “You’re wrong! You’re wrong about this! About me!”
Again he shook his head, the fiery eyes tracking her.
“No, I am not wrong. Here is what I am: too old, and too slow to help you improve.
“The truth is, Sora, I’ve enjoyed your company, but as a student of the killing arts, you will be the only student I have failed.”
That made her stop, her face betraying shock, and she spluttered and swallowed whatever she’d been about to say in protest.
He rose, shifting his weight like a log in the fire, poured her a cup of tea and shambled over to give it to her while he gave her advice.
“Abandon this road, and live a longer, happier life as a civilian. The warrior’s path is not for everyone to walk.”
She took the proffered cup because she needed something to focus on to keep from screaming, and because she didn’t know what else to do.
All this time, he’d not said a kind word, or did a kind deed, but now that he was done with her he was almost gentle, and even a little sad.
It made no sense.
He returned to his chair, and indicated with a small sweeping gesture toward the pot that she could help herself to some food.
She looked at him, but his eyes were closed now and she couldn’t tell if he was sleeping.
Emotions fought within her, but there was too much and nothing more to say.
The bowl steamed in the cooling evening air as she sat on the steps, watching the shadows lengthen on the ground.
Swarms of gnats and small butterflies played around high stalks of flowers in the persimmon rays, and the birds began their evensongs.
She concentrated on the beauty of the scene in front of her, and felt the rhythm of her heart slowing.
Eating without tasting, she finally finished everything and left the bowl and cup on the steps.
On her way back to the cottage she began to turn Chimatsu’s words over in her mind.
Inside, looking around at the sparse furnishings there came a realization that as harsh and uncomfortable as it had been, she’d endured it, and that was something.
If nothing else he’d released a side of her she didn’t know she possessed.
He said the warrior’s path wasn’t for her, but maybe it just wasn’t a straight one. The truth was, she loved the feel of the weapons, loved the hum and swish as she sliced the air to chunks and the straw men to ribbons.
It thrilled her.
And yet, for all her joy, Chimatsu had basically shown her that even at the end of his fighting days, over before Sora was born, he could still beat her; he would brook no excuses as to his reputation.
“Your opponent doesn’t care who you are.” Splat!
Still, his name struck fear into hearts of enemies and allies alike; he’d went through both with equal alacrity and aplomb. In his time it was considered an honor to fight beside him, and a death sentence to fight against him.
He told her she would never be worthy of being considered either, and in the cold, empty embrace of this strange place in a strange land, alone where no one could see, she allowed herself to cry.
Sensei Chimatsu was tough, not prone to mercy or quarter; he pressed every advantage and seemed to find every opening with a quickness and severity that belied his age. He moved with the flexibility of a wet reed in a hurricane.
Sora’s clothes were sodden and splattered with mud because he kept knocking her back down into it as fast as the rain rinsed it off.
“You are distracted today, Sora. To be distracted in combat is to die.
“Tell me,” he said, taking her legs out again, making her fall, “is it your family?” Splat!
“Your friends?” Splat!
“The boy you love?” Splat!
“Thoughts of home?” Splat!
Unable to rise from Chimatsu’s onslaught, Sora lay there heaving, wondering if this crazy old man was *trying to paralyze her.
Chimatsu bent and lifted her chin on the tip of his gnarled, hard fingers.
“Return to your father’s house, Sora.”
He helped her up, the rain washing the mud from her clothes and face, cutting the bitter saltiness of her tears, and making her cold and miserable on the outside as well.
Appraising her for what seemed like forever, his expression remained unmoved as stone.
She shivered, sniffled, and hugged herself, not meeting his eyes though she felt more angry than ashamed. She imagined this was how bare trees felt when their leaves were gone and they stood denuded in clusters, as prone to nature’s fury as she was to this man’s whim.
But she was alone, and rootless on the muddy ground.
He grunted her dismissal as he turned his back and walked away, not caring if she followed or went back to the guest cottage where she stayed.
She stood there in the rain, hearing the iron finality of his words echo in her mind:
Return to your father’s house, Sora.
Her father would not take it lightly and would not be pleased with either of them; she would not let him shame her before her father.
When the door to Chimatsu’s dilapidated house closed, she took a deep breath and went through the forms until it got dark, the rain felt like an icy second skin, and her clothes felt heavy as armor.
Armor is for warriors, Sora. Earn your armor.
Breathing hard and pushing herself to go faster, she kept it up until she was shivering too violently to do them anymore and could no longer concentrate.
The mud pulled and gripped over her ankles as she made her way off the practice field, forcing her to march a little, her spirit as soaked and heavy as her clothes and hair.
Before she opened the shoji screen, she used the water pump and filled the two buckets Chimatsu left there, the muscles in her arms screaming as she carried them inside.
Grateful to be out of the rain, in the scant relative warmth of the guest cottage she took off her slimy shoes and left them outside, then made silty barefoot tracks across the floor. She hung the iron pot on its pole, wincing from the pain of the effort. After she poured the buckets into it she hurried to make a fire.
As it warmed the modest room she waited by the screen door looking at the rain batter the ground as it erased all trace of her presence, and her defeat.
You are distracted, Sora…
When everything was warm enough, she poured the heated water into a small tub that barely fit her, then stripped and bathed. Her hair, coming untied in the drubbing, needed a bath of its own.
She massaged her arm muscles and aching knees, and raked between her toes. Checking her body for red marks and bruises she knew she’d have to stretch to keep the muscles from stiffening. She’d still feel the pain in varying intensity.
Still for all his ferocity Chimatsu didn’t break or fracture anything; he’d been at this long enough to know how to do that.
Getting out, she dried off and examined her body.
On the whole, she’d definitely gotten stronger, if not better; her body was lean and taut, and muscles she didn’t know she had were defined and firm all over. She looked great, and felt like a hundred horses trampled her.
Wrapped in the damp towel, she sat on the edge of the futon with her legs folded under her as sore and tired muscles began to protest being kept upright. She concentrated on the fire, her breathing deepening, slowing, as she relaxed and sidled into bed. She gave her limbs and extremities a final cat-like stretch, spreading her fingers and toes and flexing them again.
She turned her face toward the warmth of the fire, and watched the flames gradually decrease.
Father will not be pleased, but Mother will. Marriage awaits, and a quiet life. I hope to be able to live that way, but I’m not sure I can. I must find out why the need to fight consumes me, and the only way to do that is to wield the weapons themselves.
Gods, help me find my path and heed my calling. Chimatsu says I’m not fit to be a warrior; I say I am not fit to be a wife. Help me to choose wisely.
Movement along the wall caught her eye as she turned on her back, and she smiled, spending an extra moment to look as the shadows of her ‘pet’ mice crept furtively toward the warmth. She regretted not leaving them any food. They were harmless enough, and one was bigger than the other. One day she was going to name them, right now she was too tired. Besides, she didn’t have anything to eat either.
The warmth of the crackling fire, the soft blankets, and the patter of rain on the roof and against the screen worked their magic, soon sending her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Armor is for warriors, Sora….
“So what were you before…?”
“I was a knight: a defender of the weak, a protector of the realm, and a servant to the crown.”
“And what makes you believe that in 2017?”
” I always write about it. I see it in my head: the pastoral scenery, the castles, the nobles and peasants, I smell the wheat, the dung, and the hay, I feel the sparks of the forges burn into my forearms, hear the clang of metal, smell the tang of smelted steel. I’ve seen new blades gleaming in the sunlight over time become nicked and scratched by battle.”
“I’ve seen the gore of the enemy dripping from both.”
“I see the hills covered in winter snow, and springtime wildflowers. I smell the perfumes and sweat of the women I’ve known. I’ve wiped their smudges and circled their nipples with my thumbs, kissed their tears, put my hands where they let me, and sometimes where they wouldn’t.”
“I smell the alleys of trash and waste, redolent and pungent in the rain and the heat of summer.”
“I hear the creaking of the rocking ships, the ding and clang of chains and anchors, and I hear the ancient sailor songs in languages I’ve never heard, from places I’ve never been, carrying heavy burdens and tying thick ropes. I hear the harbor rats, feral cats in their wake or on the hunt.”
“I see the grand, high-ceiling halls full of intricate sculpting, paintings, candles, garlands, splendid gowns and noble robes. I hear the lilt of lute and pipe and mandolin, I hear the torches sizzle in their sconces, see the idols of forgotten gods on the hilltops, and smell the rot of forgotten kings in their tombs.”
“I’ve been to the armories of kings of empires, and seen the high pyres of the dead from wars, plagues, famines, disputes, and fires.”
“I’ve traveled with players’ troupes in colorful wagons, tumbling in air and throwing knives.”
“I’ve seen the candles burn in the wizards’ towers and the sorceresses cottage, and the witches’ caves, and the mad hermits’ burrows.”
“I’ve heard the forest whisper, scream, sob and laugh when no one was there.”
“I’ve been in the dank of rat infested dungeons, staring at hungry red eyes.”
“I’ve been trampled, burned, butchered, beheaded, and strangled in my bed. Then I returned the favors.”
“I’ve lost my life to the raging sea and the calm, relentless desert sun.”
“I’ve been poisoned, robbed, and tortured at length.”
“I’ve scaled walls into treasuries and bedrooms.”
“I’ve fought in tournaments of backwater villages, and in arenas of cheering crowds, and in taverns of ill repute of both food and customers.”
“Everything in my blood harkens back to olden tymes.
“And I possess it still.”
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–!)
Beyond Panic 