The wings are still there
Propped in a dark corner
Of a forgotten room
Since childhood
Shaggy and moth eaten
Dull gray with dust
Feathers drooping
Beneath Time’s weight
They whisper of a dream
Where anything is possible
Where I can fly
If only I believe
And possess a child’s courage
To strap on gossamer wings
Constructed of innocence and faith
And leap blindly into space
Photo from Pixabay
she murmurs, she sighs,
a brine-steeped zephyr,
her voice is a cry
that calls out to me
across the miles,
to a place she cannot see,
to a place she cannot be
twisted roads and alleys,
grassy hills
and green valleys,
lay down a protective cover
to separate she and I
like a jealous lover–
or an overprotective brother
she comes to me in dreams,
sunlight and starlight,
a reflected wet succubus gleam
that rolls wild and free
I yearn for her liquid embrace,
to return to a place I cannot see,
to a place I cannot be
Photo from Pixabay
She came down hard on her butt.
The ship listed to one side. A dream, Jane thought as she slid along the planking. This is just a dream. But that knowledge didn’t stop her from being scared out of her wits, and it sure didn’t stop the all-too-real pain of splinters gouging her palms as she scrabbled for a handhold.
Her fingers brushed—what? She turned her head to the right, and there was The Book and her fingers were gone, swallowed between its open cover. Then her arm was gone, and oh sweet Jesus, it was sucking her up, pulling her inside itself, pulling her into its yellow mouth.
Again, falling, tumbling. And again being deposited. Somewhere.
Jane opened her scrunched-tight eyes. Back resting against the wall, she was sitting on the floor of the closet inside the Liberty Public Library, the feather duster on the varnished boards beside her. And The Book.
She giggled. Silly of her, she’d sat down in the closet to look at The Book, and had fallen asleep. Good thing it was Saturday and she had the place all to herself. It wouldn’t have done for sour-faced Miss Maples to have caught her napping on the job.
Yes, that’s what had happened: she’d fallen asleep and dreamed. And oh, what a lovely dream it had been. Until its end. Continue reading
Jane Hitchcock twitched the feather duster over the shelf of old books, stirring up years of dust that had settled upon their frayed tops. Wonder why they’re hidden away in here where no one can see them, she thought. A treasure they are, so old. And worth a lot of money, I’ll bet.
Her nose tickled. She sneezed, the sound as loud as a thunderclap inside the small closet. The flailing duster snagged one of the books, knocking it to the floor where it lay open, its fragile insides exposed.
Jane bent over—no easy task for her two-hundred-pound-plus frame—and reached for the book. But then she noticed something. Strange. The lines upon the yellowed pages squiggled, wiggled, jiggled.
What in the world…
With a pained grunt, she dropped to her arthritic knees. She pushed back wisps of graying brown hair that had escaped its tight bun and peered at the dancing letters. Something was there, on the page beneath the words. She leaned forward for a closer look.
Her belly shoved up against her ribs, demanding room for itself, almost cutting off her supply of air and causing her to breathe in fast little pants. “What…is…that?” Her chubby fingers splayed over the brittle paper.
And she was falling. Continue reading
black is…
the color of the ocean floor
the color of the deepest well
the color of a witch’s cat
the color of a lover’s spell
black is…
the color of infinity
the color of a new-moon night
the color of secrecy
the color of a dream that never takes flight
black is…
the color of a broken heart
the color of a demented mind
the color of an empty life
the color left behind
black is…
the color I breathe
the color I see
the color I taste
the color that owns me
for black is…
me
Photo from Morguefile
A murder of crows takes flight,
Cawing their insanity into the abyss of the night.
They wake the monster of madness; it rears its bristly head.
“Be not afraid,” gods whisper as you lie in your panicked bed.
“For I am here, I am with you, I am the light.”
Just a child, alone, you tremble in fright,
Too little to ward off things not heard nor seen–
Fragments of shredded emotions, slivers of boogeyman dreams.
