Hello, world.

The day has finally arrived, sailors and sirens. My dinky little chapbook, hand-illustrated and Xeroxed in the first edition, has turned into a glossy china dish encrusted with the coral of the intervening years.

Which is just a silly way of saying, hey. The Tiny Book of Tales, second edition, is available for you to purchase, should you so desire. It's 20 poems, dredged from my many years of struggling to find the right words for everything. They're rough-edged, and I didn't want to polish too hard for fear I'd lose what they meant to me, every grey day, every long year until now. They're different, but, I think, still true.

If you are looking for a bit of history and context, you can find the Tiny Book of Tales on Amazon, or grab a copy from Lulu. It's a pleasure and a privilege to turn the page from that chapter to this one, with you.

Thank you.

Grace

Spring-heeled Jack

This time of year again, full and floral in its certainty,
grates against my spine. The paper moon hanging behind
pale pink blossoms illuminates nothing but the aimless drift
of true north in my flesh, the brass key twisting, iron wires wrapped tight.

It's you, my personal four-minutes-to-midnight, dragging
this compass through no-man's-land. It's barbed wire alone separating us
from faded summer, shredding me like tissue while I survey these new coordinates;
diminishing your High Priestess of escape into mere avoidance adept.

The damage we do to one another is legendary, mirrors cracking
from side to side as we pass, seven times seven years of bad luck latching on.
All that longing after mutually assured destruction, now banked in ash,
the baleful ember of at least one crisis averted.

Still, your silhouette draws me in. Your shadow leaves me wondering through
every sleepless, jasmine-scented dawn. Is this love, or aftermath? Twisted metal
stained with red, the street covered with gems of shattered glass; perhaps it is loss
I feel. Or perhaps it is only the sound of another clock, ticking quietly toward the end.


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For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Bran macFeabhail challenged me with "Crisis averted." and I challenged sparrow with "I say. Bad form, old chap."

Changeover Cue

Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.

Gosling

Face pillowed on her strong arms, she dreams. The long muscles of her legs twitch as she races around the long-vanished track, outpacing her girl-companions. They are all mothers, now, in the waking world. Even her, once. Now, though, there are only the dreams, brilliant tapestry patched together out of a thousand memories. After the race, a feast, the feast decreed by her father for the winner, roasted meat and bone, slick fat dripping onto the coals of many braziers and ascending in smoke to the gods.

In the way of dreams, by now she is no longer in her racing garb and no longer a child. She reclines comfortably at her father's table, the scent of the black broth, prize of warriors, wafting from boiling bowls, the edge of her hunger growing sharp. In this moment, she is refined, a precious blade from the north. Honed to perfection.

Here in her room, she is no longer sharp and ready, but curled loosely upon the cushions. Her well-muscled hands twitch after the dreamfood, and her rose-tinted lips part, a coral blush rising in her full cheeks. Her breath comes short now, and her muscles strain toward unfathomable delight. Her servants, her guards, turn away, fearful of visions sent by jealous Aphrodite, but we gaze on.

The table is set, groaning with the dishes of her youth, and she tucks in, greedy with long deprivation.

Soft and pungent cheese, drizzled with amber honey. Precious oil carried from the Athenian groves, golden-green and thick, grassy on the tongue. Crumbling wheat-cake and chopped herbs. Grilled figs, sour-sharp olives, tender meat and crisp pomegranate seeds. Wine, oh, wine, black like the sea until mixed with water from her favorite spring, wine that flowed redder than blood, redder than crimson, redder than madder-dyed cloth.

Twice-abducted Helen sleeps through the long, hot days. There, she cannot know regret for her vanished lifetimes. There, in the memory-court of Tyndareus, she devours the bread and wine of dreams. There, no husbands or suitors, no ill-tempered gods, no daughter and no siblings torment her with obligation, and even in the midst of war, there is no one who would grudge her this escape.

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For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, The Lime challenged me with "delicious food is involved", and I challenged Lance with "Detective Puppy and the Case of the Missing Knickerbockers".