scribblings

may 2

the writing

the crow holds a sword 
rusted feathers, rusted blade 
haloed by fool’s gold

~

She stalks through the endless forest, making for the scorched tower. Days had passed—or longer. Her shoes had worn away. She is neither hungry nor thirsty. Surely something to be concerned about—and yet. Her rage keeps her going—towards the tower. Towards her betrayer.

~

Louise put off clearing out her mother’s basement—she’d always found it unsettling, without knowing exactly why. It’s just piled-up junk, dusty shelves of dustier jars & cans. The furnace hums & the bare lightbulb flickers—& the girl who died the summer Lou turned seven—She stares. Giggles. Vanishes. 

~

They hide out in the barn until the sun rises, then venture back to the house. 
“Don’t slip in the blood,” Gina whispers. 
“What bl—ugh!” Max skids in the mess, jeans stained, biting down a scream. 
The floor overhead creaks, & they all freeze. 
“Thought it couldn’t move in the light,” Dylan hisses.

~

The guests took their places at the dinner table, no one commenting on the swords suspended over their heads—no one spoke at all, save for the host, who kept up a cheerful banter as the meal was served. His psychic, dolled up in velvet and lace, slowly circled the dinner party. When she paused behind a particular chair—seeing, listening—if she met the host’s eyes, he would ring a bell—and the sword would fall. 

~

He couldn’t figure it out. The target had swallowed down the poison an hour ago, and was still laughing, talking, dancing—not a care in the world! 
“That’s not the Baron’s daughter,” a waiter whispered. “She’s a very elaborate automaton. And she knows you’re here. We all do.”

~

he is colt-shy 
kicks at stones, hair in his face 
wanting a soft hand…

the reading

Poem: “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh (from A Poem to Read Aloud Every Day of the Year)

“The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, 
To wayward winter reckoning yields, 
A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall. 

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses, 
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies 
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten: 
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.”

Essay: “David Silver” by Mikka Jacobsen (from Modern Fables)

“If you want to believe in cosmic order, you have to imagine an intelligent design choreographing all the biological fates that befall organic life. What kind of god thinks up depression, or psychosis, or something more gruesomely visual, like flesh-eating disease? As a child, I was convinced I would die of this affliction. And not wholly irrationally. My father, who worked at a children’s hospital, provided shocking details about the grim cases he’d seen. When I would complain of an ache or injury, he would look me in the eye and say, ‘Flesh-eating disease.’ He thought this funny. Such ‘jokes’ likely spawned my own questionable sense of humour. Bu that’s the thing about fate and faith—you can never know any caught or origin with any real certainty; the great mystery is the point.”