scribblings

may 15

the writing

the porch light flickers 
only the moths notice me 
search for the spare key

~

His two apprentices approached their magic studies in very different ways: one locked up in the tower library, pouring over books with diligence & dedication. The other found magic out in the world: in the people, in the forest, studying life with curiosity & creativity.
They argued constantly, and yet, both would have a hand in saving their world when Hell cracked open…

~

take your rusted heart 
bury it in the forest 
possessed by the dirt

~

He burned down her church, to begin with. 
It was an accident, but he never bothered himself to apologize—and she was always going on about love & forgiveness & turning the other cheek, so he thought he was off the hook. Right until she came into his bar & shot him in the leg with a silver bullet. 

~

forest fire blaze 
& miles away, my mother
crying pine sap tears

~

It was a madness unalloyed possessing the young witch that fateful, foolish night. In the aftermath, most were dead; others twisted beyond the desire for death. Fire still burned, and may still be burning to this day. Some of it (not enough) could be reversed (but not by her).
The brother found what was left of his sister, and raised his sword—

the reading

Poem: “The Street of the Cellist” by Geri Rosenzweig

“When at last
you find the street of the cellist,
may the dread
that accompanied you
fall by the way,
may the yellow hive
of her window direct you
to the garden
where the russet tint
of alders keep
for all time her three
stone sundials in their shade. […]”

Short Story: “Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills (from The New Voices of Science Fiction)

“She didn’t stay in the Pre-Mendorian era for long. If the stories were true, these hills were controlled by competing warrior bands—territorial at best, cannibals at worst. Archaeologists and anthropologists were divided on the subject, and she didn’t care to investigate on their behalf.
At night there were lights to guide her, those strange phosphorescent blooms that lived in the mid space between eras, native to none. Sailing was trickier by day, when the glare of the sun blinded her against multicolored hints from the deep, but a good fisherwoman trusted her nose over her eyes. She knew the sharp herbal scents of drifting leviathans, the floral pockets of midspace cilia, the burnt-rubber sharks and the sour lemon sleepwhales. 
Mika drifted back and forth along the coastline until she caught the scent of black tar under a hardboiled sun, and then she turned her boat west, toward the future.”