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June 4th, 2009
05:20 pm - Air and fire
There was no subtle pin-prick
Where air began to escape from within
Our skin. At no one point did our integrity
Falter, our vigilance fail, our guard fall.
Merely, the material that composed this yielding vessel,
So capable at surviving storms,
So flexible in the wind,
Allowed our giddy, sweetly distilled air
To seep out between its molecules.
A betrayal of microscopic proportions; intrinsic
To the fabric of our life. Nothing left to mend.
I furl my first attempt as a flier
To consider the lifting potential of fire.
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May 26th, 2009
11:08 am - Struggle
Come hound, come hunger, come spear, come fear:
I bring you sweet defiance.
My feet are fleet, my hide shines bright:
Come catch me if you can.
I know I'm outnumbered, my days are marked,
I hear doom knelling in every bark--
But come huntsman, come chase, come breath, come death:
I bring you sweet defiance.
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May 23rd, 2009
08:46 pm - Farm share!
Got the postcard in the mail today
And I can just about taste that sunshine,
Hear the babble of voices recounting a schoolday
From the other side of the rows.
I can just about feel the ripe strawberries
Between my fingers, the stems of poppies
With their whisper-soft billowing scarlet blooms.
I can just about see the bundles of lettuce,
Yellow-green and rusty red and spotted,
Lying crisp and still wet on the wooden planks.
I can just about roll the carrots between my hands,
Knock a little dirt off the sweet potatoes,
Pick a pint of sweet peas, and clip some calendula
For the vase in the front hallway.
Oh yes indeed. Summer's on its way.
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08:11 pm - Rain
1. Robin's breakfast
It's frog weather, duck weather, picnic out of luck weather;
Skies do cry as the wild wind sighs in the pines. And rise
The rivers, lakes, ponds, and streams, shivering over borders
Gone soft and muddy, blurred and slurred like watercolors,
Or chalk paintings, fading and fainting in the rain.
2. Invoking the pour-down
Stroking the sky with smoke supplication,
The nations of farmers rejoice in the clouds.
3. Thunder was not heard, again
Heat like a hammer
The sky weighed more than iron
Majestic, it broke
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May 20th, 2009
01:24 pm - Draft: Darkdriven
She waits for me in dark spaces,
My bitter, midnight lover.
She whispers to me in darkness,
When everyone has gone to bed.
When I've lost the knack of sleeping,
When I wake up from a nightmare,
She's there waiting with me,
Her fingers on my head.
She walks with me in daylight,
But hides from our friends.
She's the shy one, the coquette.
She doesn't like strangers.
She doesn't like surprises.
She'd really rather stay home
Than come to your party.
I know that she loves me;
She always wants to hold me.
She knows just how to stop me,
And how to keep me near.
I know that she loves me;
She says that she can save me.
It has something to do with hiding,
And something to do with fear.
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May 19th, 2009
10:58 am - A villanelle
To Duke
Your warm, kind hands give me compass in the night.
There is no break beneath the dark that haunts my wide, blind eyes.
There is no sound within the silence hobbling my flight.
I shout into the stillness and rage against the blight;
Though I can't hear their swell and fall, you find me by my cries.
Your warm, kind hands give me compass in the night.
I circle, circle left until at last it comes out right,
And here's the wall, and there's the rug, and now composed, I'll lie.
There is no sound within the silence hobbling my flight.
Every touch enriches me, startling into body's sight;
Sweet comfort there, worth waking for, after the surprise.
Your warm, kind hands give me compass in the night.
Is it day? No dawn breaks in with honey-golden light;
Time's askew, my morning's gone, and every echo dies.
There is no sound within the silence hobbling my flight.
Behind my eyes live memories of spaces once lit bright;
Diminished, not extinguished, against the dark I rise.
Your warm, kind hands give me compass in the night.
There is no sound within the silence hobbling my flight.
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May 18th, 2009
01:36 pm - Evermoving
Under glass, I sit cradled by the light,
Rushing, shushing sea-sounds above me.
I am at the bottom of a white-pine bay,
Evergreen breakers tossing needled foam,
Winds soughing through high cathedral trunks.
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November 24th, 2008
02:34 pm - sunset
We are in need of a new day, my dear.
A different light to illuminate ourselves to each other,
A fresh dawn, and an unmarked awakening.
This long, slow dying of the light,
This sunset sky washed with orange and mauve,
These clouds aflame with the sunken sunlight,
This purpling night sky too faded with an old day to show the stars--
I'm tired of it.
So I think I'll go sleep in my bed,
And send you off to yours.
Tomorrow we will make what we can of ourselves,
And see what we are to each other.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/working.gif) artistic
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November 7th, 2008
04:31 pm - Ma petite fleur
Her velvet smell envelops me, a musk rose in heavy nodding bloom.
Cradling her in my arms, my mind whirls, stunned still,
My thoughts clouded with the lingering taste of her honeyed kiss.
The skin over her spine is an empty silken canvas,
Her hair tangles under my hands,
A sweet moment to savor as another early autumn darkness falls.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/happy.gif) satisfied
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November 2nd, 2008
10:36 am - My writing journal! Back from the dead!
I yearn
To help you uncrimp the edges of your soul,
To unclip the bent cage bars, see them clatter to the ground,
Watch you stretch muscles so unused to flight--
My place is elsewhere.
May I be a benevolent muse,
A trustworthy adviser,
An ardent friend,
And let the smoldering embers of desire slumber on.
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November 20th, 2006
08:52 pm - Night Goddess
It was dark, and she was hungry.
The darkness was beyond impenetrable. It had a thick, solid weight to it, a physical presence that pressed down on lungs that no longer strained for air, that muffled even the small sounds that she made as she struggled against her bonds. The darkness coated her eyeballs like clinging velvet, and filled her mouth when she opened her swollen lips.
She couldn't stop struggling against her bonds, though it gained her nothing and only served to increase her hunger and the pain that wracked her stiffened limbs. The chains cut into her wrists, her ankles, her waist, her throat. It was a fearsome weight of metal, each manacle as wide as her palm and two fingers'-widths thick, and the weals that they had rubbed into her skin were raw and thick with old scar tissue. The chains that connected her manacles weighed even more, dwarfing her lightly-boned, emaciated body. Her captors weren't willing to take chances with her. Not anymore.
She fingered the length of chain that connected her wrist cuffs to the metal belt that encircled her waist. There was nothing she could do with it; it was too short to use in strangling anyone, even if she had the opportunity and the angle. And they hadn't allowed her that in a long, long time. But her fingers wore an obsessive path up and down the solid links nevertheless, up and down, up and down. The alloy of steel and silver didn't warm to her touch no matter how long she let her fingers wander their familiar trail, and in this timeless darkness, she might have been tracing the same fruitless inches for minutes, or days.
Another hunger cramp twisted through her, and she cried out softly with the pain. There was no one to hear her, or take pity on her. Not down here. The sound echoed hollowly from the stone walls of her prison, invisible in the darkness, and mingled with the musical chiming of her chains as a second cramp doubled her over. It was intolerable. The darkness, the hunger... even the isolation goaded her. She felt a great red madness welling up through the darkness that lived within the slender confines of her starveling frame.
She had teetered on the edge of control for so long, using her will to hold back the rage, and when that broke, stifling it with her weakness. This time, finally, she embraced it.
Had there been anyone with darksight near to bear witness to what happened next, they might have backed away from the renewed ferocity of her struggles and the great blank hunger that filled her eyes. She hadn't fought her captivity this hard in a long, long time. So long, in fact, that she would have taken her captors completely by surprise had they been with her at the time. They might have gasped aloud in fear as she levitated bodily towards the ceiling of the cavern, fighting mindlessly against the short length of chain that bolted her manacled ankles to the floor. They might have felt a sympathetic shiver of terror as a midnight wind rose out of nowhere to twist her hair into witch-locks, raising them out from her head in all directions like a writhing halo.
But no one, darksighted or otherwise, dared to enter the cavern of the goddess anymore. They heard her hunger in the wailing of the night wind, and not one of them had forgotten her power.
The night had teeth.
Current Mood: cheerful
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March 16th, 2006
10:35 am - The Promise
I want to wear a promise, not a chain.
Be bonded, and unbound.
To have a future field, not a gilded cage,
And desire to be found.
Current Mood: weird
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February 11th, 2006
07:56 pm - winter poem
The sky is wide with the scent of snow.
Geese cry their lonely vee across the westering sun,
Black on blue and dark strong wings.
Rise, moon, haloed 'round with snow-sign.
The wind has fingers like smudges of grief;
The stars stand guard over empty black shores.
A night descends that drives me from its cold embrace,
Into the more tender grasp of human arms.
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February 9th, 2006
08:53 am - Learning Curve
My eight-chapter story about four characters set in three worlds just became a five-chapter story about two characters set in one world. Yet there is progress, and I think that the tale is the stronger for the cut. Still, it was painful to reduce my completed* draft by so much!
I was told by a band instructor long long ago that one model of learning progresses through the following stages: Unconscious/Incompetent; Conscious/Incompetent; Conscious/Competent; Unconscious/Competent.
So far the only things I've knowingly reached that fourth stage with are frying pancakes and selling movie tickets. I'd like to think that someday, maybe five or ten years from now, writing will join those skills.
And now, it's 9 o'clock, and I'm off to put in my writing time for the day.
*[edit: by which I mean, the section of my first draft I have so far completed. I expect the finished work to be more like 30 or 40 chapters.]
Current Mood: chipper
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February 6th, 2006
09:23 am - titles
The Fantasy Novel Title Generator
Children of Conquest
Storm of the Dark Maiden
The Silver Demon
Hunter's Sunset
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January 23rd, 2006
08:32 am
They surrounded him like ghosts. Silent, only the rushing sound of their breath, the odd swish of fabric as one of them stirred rose over the sound of his horse's hooves. Their white robes reinforced the impression. Stacey held back his tears as he rode through the silently staring crowd, into exile.
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October 26th, 2005
10:04 am - Day of the Walking Dead
And now, for your viewing pleasure, 9 haiku, a limmerick, and a sonnet... about zombies.
Unbreathing walker
You shamble through my hallway
Craving my sweet brain
Stop! You milk-eyed corpse.
You will not dare approach me-
I brandish an axe.
Like moths to a flame
These creatures of the undead
Are following me
The peaceful graveyard
Lies empty under the moon
Where are the bodies?
My car is dented
I hit the zombie ten times
It is hard to kill
My zombie servant
Is smelly and decaying
It depresses me
Craving your sweet flesh
I burn for you, but you just
Shout "Zombie!" and run
Oh why did my dog
Rise up from his grave to fetch?
Sit, Rover! Play dead!
My army is dead
Like cherry blossoms, their limbs
Wither and fall off
***********
There once was a zombie named Fred
Who a voodoo priest raised from the dead
Said Fred to the priest
"It's not much of a feast,
So I'll take your liver instead."
*************
The midnight graves have opened wide their jaws
And glassy eyes now seek the drowsing moon
That leafless trees are holding in their claws;
It shines on brighter than the sharpest noon.
A drumbeat cracks the shoulders of the night,
A pulsebeat draws the walkers on, like flame.
A rhythm pulls them, grips them with its might,
And sings to them of pleasures and of pain.
Their throats emit a low and lonely moan,
The sound of old oaks bending in the gale,
And towards the town their restless limbs are thrown
By pounding beat and shrilling, chilling wail.
A ceaseless craving spurs them ever down;
A hunger draws the zombies to the town.
Current Mood: amused
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October 5th, 2005
03:00 pm - Forth From Shadow - thoughts
I'm getting the distinct impression that the first chapter of FFS is extraneous. I think I'm going to dump it entirely, and start from what is currently chapter 2. Then what we have so far is:
- Sun Commander Detaleth meets a creepy shadow demon
- Martha goes to college and meets her new roommate
- Ashith has a vigil over his brother
- Jack meets his roommate Nix and explains his emo problems
Upcoming goodness, in no particular order
- Ashith's brother's funeral! Ashith's new job!
- Martha gets advising! Martha sees her roommate naked!
- Jack meets Martha in a class!
...and more action-packed fun.
Current progress (after removing chapter 1):
8k out of 100k
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October 4th, 2005
12:38 pm - Forth From Shadow: chapter 5 prewriting
So... where is everybody?
Jack needs to meet his new roommate Nix, who just happens to also be in the Special Studies program and is studying to be a Summoner like Martha.
Martha needs to have her advising appointment, and get a feel for the status of the Summoning department. Faculty politics = fun! (not.)
Ashith needs to attend his brother's funeral and make a short speech. He also needs to have an interesting proposal made to him by Liaspen.
Detaleth needs to be interviewed by the Onyx City Council with an eye towards setting up defenses against the shadow demons.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/thoughtful.gif) thoughtful
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September 28th, 2005
10:23 am - Work in Progress
Current works in progress:
- Forth From Shadow: now on chapter 3 typed, with some additional handwritten draft. Final projected length: novel.
- Illena's Story: Twenty-odd pages of handwritten draft. Final projected length: novella.
- Beauty and the Wolf: Fifteen or so pages of handwritten draft. Final length: unknown.
- Summoner: 63 pages typed; first draft complete. Final length: novella.
Found on the web:
In literary circles, a novella is from 15,000-30,000 words, and anything over this is a novel. In SF circles, a novella is 17,500-40,000 words, and anything over 40K is a novel.
80,000 is actually at the low end of what most publishers want for a novel. Average length of a novel is 100,000 words. The range most publishers want is 80,000-120,000 words.
Standard lengths for fiction are:
Short short--under 2,000 words.
Short Story--2,000 to 7,500 words.
Novelette--7,500 to 17,500 words.
Novella--17,500 to 40,000 words.
Novel-- anything over 40,000 words.
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