I was there–in spoiled silks, sateens and laceon a stage composedof noise and dread…Splintered boardsbeneath my ice-white feet,hot and cold, awashwith human bloodand waste…I remember……fearand sweatand sickness…a kind of stunned bewilderment,hardened as a glazeacross the gazeof eyes embittered,seeing everywhere the castof madness and despair…Of lust and hungerborne so deepit passes from the bellyto the souland there …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
“It’s just how I am…”
My first thought about posting this particular piece was that it isn’t in keeping with the time of year. But today I am thinking of all the people who are alone this time of year, who have fallen off Christmas card lists, of those no one realizes have no happy family to gather with in …
Tolkien Tribute: confustication
A wizard and a hobbit met in a little pub in BreeAnd drank together for a while, though neither one, you see,Was in a very cheerful mood, as life had lately not been goodFor either nor the other, in fact! Between their complaints and their fair pints a-flowing,Trust and good fellowship fast were a-growing:The hobbit …
Holy Days
Wishing you the best of the holiday season! Channukah has begun, and there is no tradition more about lights and miracles! Solstice is here and the whole planet moves with it, something that transcends cultures, though every culture seems to have a way to celebrate it. The birth of Jesus is all about light coming …
Tolkien Tribute: SMAUG
Flame surging in my belly, I cry out,and leap into the clouds, exulting:Wings, vast, they span the star-bright heavens! I sail through the night, tempest roaring a storm of mighty rage, a-soaring–Flame surging in my belly, I cry out! In all of the world, there is no othermagnificent as I! I bellow powerand leap into the clouds, …
Impeachment
There are those who are not celebrating today. There are hysterical protests founded in lies and distractions, in stunningly ridiculous attempts to gaslight the entire world into seeing the calling to account of a disastrously anti-American administration as a bad thing, an unfair thing. They thought they had this in the bag, that by twisting …
THRESHOLD: preface
I wrote this several years ago, in 2005, about the time I began to worry about climate change. It was meant to be an invitation to literary visionaries, to write stories of the world this preface described. It could still be that, the beginning of an anthology of the times during, after, and long after …
Tolkien Tribute: Queen Beruthial’s Cats
A shade in the shadowlurking;A purr in the darknesssmirking;Softness against a bare legleaning;One with shadow againleaving… Fire of green in the nightgleaming;Flame of gold in the duskseemingageless and cannybeyond scheming;Cats of Beruthiel smile,dreaming… These cats are spoken of only once, a mention made by Aragorn in an off-hand way… an idiomatic reference: “He is surer …
Tolkien Tribute: The Rangers
1–LURKERSStorm and ice howling through the winter passes…The bellies of the scudding clouds, glowing dull and fitful,reflecting back the desperate firelightfrom which all warmth is blasted by the winds…Alone is better, the huddled traveler thinks,Than the company he knows is lurking in these peaks…And he shivers only partly from the cold… 2–BROTHERSBrisk chill breeze of …
Tolkien Tribute: Gimli in Valinor
a monologue addressed to his axe Was a time I thoughtI could not get my boots soon enoughonto good firm rock again…And yet,here I sit,upon a kegonce full of Middle Earth’s best ale,with ye, my trusty Axe,leaning here against my knee–choosing the gentle rocking of a deck,over the fair and solid land I seeshining just …
LOOSELY SPEAKING... 