Here you will find various snippets, tidbits and scraps of things that I may have submitted to magazines, anthologies or just kept to myself. Please keep in mind that, until I say otherwise, this site is still under construction and is subject to change (or not!) at any time.
Posted 6 May 2003
Untitled - posted 29 April 2003
Two perfect roses bloom on her cheeks, planted by raw, raging winds. High red color, the only indication that she is not formed of the ice and snow surrounding her. Her hair, long and auburn, spills straight down her back, painted on in thick, rich texture. Her eyes glitter, cold and green, emeralds set in to an alabaster face. Lips, blood, to match her cheeks. No trace of breath in the icy air gives her presence away and she sits, willing her heart to slow, becoming a part of the scenery, rather than a casual observer or passerby.
Barren oaks and maple reach for the heavens, a flat, slate grey, uniform in it’s lack of depth. A stark visage, but for the thick coating of ice on each branch and twig, shining, sparkling at every angle, blinding when the sun is out. Water forming diamonds of it’s own.
The snow begins to fall, silently, a flake for every word unspoken, every tear never shed, lighting on her sooty lashes and porcelain nose, melting on lurid, red lips. An ice princess, once flesh, freezing herself in to a permanent winter.
Come nightfall, the slate uniform canopy will erupt into electric hues of violet, cobalt and midnight. The clouds will glow unearthly pinks and oranges and the moon will play hide-and-go-seek until sunrise. But for now, the world is still painted in a monochrome scale, tinted with silver, and not without it’s own beauty and depth. Ethereal, ruled by a new queen.
Tan. Everywhere that I look, everyplace that I turn, I see tan. Tan, tan, tan – wait! I think that I spotted some beige. Yes! And is that…can it be…yes! Dun. There is little greenery as there are no oases. What vegetation you might stumble upon or across is placed, intentionally, carefully, and watered with excrement.
Diesel fumes, human waste, Dub-Dub lizard roasting on an open pit. It’s an assault on the olfactories. And there, moving through the landscape steady and strong, the roar of generators, environmental control units, trucks.
I have, however, in my possession, the rarest of all commodities in this place, this wasteland in the middle of a wasteland: FREE TIME. Not much, only a couple of hours, but a couple of hours in a place where we think of timeliness in terms of seconds, minutes at the most, is an eternity, an expanse of time so vast, I am beside myself with glee. I hug myself.
I want to write. I want to chronicle all of it. It must all be noted, written, shown to the world. Everyone needs to know that there are events, people, things and nuances that transcend politics and public opinion, that at the heart of every action there is a story, there are real people in real places and the truth makes some of the best fiction ever written.
It is evening, the sun is going down, the temperature is dropping and I am armed with my notebook, pen and gallon of sweet tea. A breeze, not often felt but always welcomed, is chasing at my sandaled heel as I make my way to the quietest, most relaxing spot that I know of: My patio chair (cracked in four places), strategically placed behind two large conex boxes on pallets, in front of the Alaska barriers, hidden from the world.
The pen is poised. The blank page crackles. I have…nothing. Nothing? My head is swimming with plans, checklists, sentences containing made up words that bureaucrats love to hear, punctuation invented by the Air Force, formats and “if this, then this”’s. I lower my pen. Can it be that all of this, everything that would make such a great story, is also sapping the ability to create right out of my soul?
I look up at the radar, over to the Mickey Mouse ears, down the cliff to Commando Village, rows upon rows of tents, and I despair. But then I turn my back on it, I feel the breeze in earnest, revel in the momentary relief of color, the last rays of the setting sun, look at the rolling dunes past the tank traps, and watch the first star appear on the horizon. Three thousand years of history, myth and magic converge upon me all at once, and a beautiful jinn washes the dust from my eyes. Again, I touch the nib of the pen to paper and words begin to flow faster than the flooded Nile, drowning the military machine in prose.
LOVE
A light, a flame
flickering and small
glowing and growing
illuminates the dark
begins to cast shadows
an inferno highlighting
the sky and clouds
roiling low, angry
creating fear, panic
hell on earth and
dying
becoming no more
than a glowing
ember sparkling red
and orange
extinguished.
LOVE PART TWO
Thunderheads rolling in
low, purple & electric
a winter night time sky
found only in fantasy paintings
(and tonight).
Rain, pouring down
hard, black & sharp
obsidian daggers from above
carved by gods of
long ago.
Lightening piercing dark
bright, silver & static
a fantastic Excalibur
pulled from a mountain
to destroy.
Girl walking alone
small, pale, a rose
(more thorn than petal)
drenched, highlighted indigo
struck down.
Scarlet pool forming
beautiful, sticky & wet.
Jade eyes staring
flat, glassy & dead.
Storm raging on
violent, spending it’s fury
on children
too stupid to run
when the sky turns violet & black,
an artist’s wintry demon,
and falls
TWO HOURS
