Beautiful
Like a flute made out of clear wax Like fresh polish on an old tenor sax Like an old barfly who remembers how to sing Like a fragile crystal bell with a celestial ring Like childhood's shining toy ball Like someone named after alcohol Like giving...
One Thousand Snakes
**One Thousand Snakes** I It always amazes me the elegance and blatant debauchery of fate and its incomprehensible machinations, the way it makes out our lives to be little more than chess pieces, to use that tired cliché. Fate, destiny, God,...
Sharpen Sticks
Sharpen Sticks Sharpen sticks They're not going to stop us They're not going to change us They're missing the big picture Because they're all poisoned And blind Sharpen sticks We're all out of ammo And the tea kettle's run dry One leg...
Sylph
Sylph It's only the wind... Bodiless in flight, immaterial in falling Beautiful to behold yet equally appalling From what titanic loins did you children spring? Progeny of Cronos, do you scour what you touch? Whelps of Odin, do you give or bring...
In Misty Pools Way Down Below
In Misty Pools Way Down Below Rose-fingered dawn falls on earthly shadows Darkness slinks away to its lightless home Where liquid things spit and twist Where fungal minds cast fungal glow In misty pools way down below Lights unseen prowl and lurk...
Hoist The Colors
**Hoist The Colors** 1 The she-wolf that was eying him from across the tavern wore a gaudy red satin dress with a long trailing bustle, two golden hoops in her ears, a black chapeau, and a bluish glimmer in each eye. She was the woman you'd go to a...
The Battlefield (part A)
**The Battlefield (part A)** The Battlefield of Sin. That's what we call the place that used to be The Decc. In its time, The Decc was a huge multicomplex devoted to plays, concerts, and conventions, sort of Duluth's answer to the Hollywood Bowl....
There's A Leak in the Boiler Room
**There's A Leak in the Boiler Room** "So you see, ladies and gentlemen, because of the mineral's unfortunate location, theoretical speculation had to be disbanded. We uprooted our labs and moved them down two thousand feet below the surface. The...
Blessing
**Blessing** The people living in the little rural town of Blessing will tell you that their problems began back in 1953, when the MacGunn gang broke into nearly every shop there was and stole all that they could carry, painting profanity on the...
Foundations
**Foundations** Miles let out a long, drawn-out sigh. He had finally finished unpacking! He looked over in the corner of his new room at the assortment of empty boxes and sneered at them. Over the years, the sight of empty...
Discorporated
**Discorporated** I wandered through the uneven streets, savoring the cold night wind as it blew against my body, enjoying the way it ruffled my black and white fur. I looked down at the remains of my trench coat. The sleeves were merely...
The Beginning of A Bad Thing
**The Beginning of a Bad Thing** Shannon's walk was brisk and determined as she marched down the hall, clinically white, holding the yellow package tightly to her breast. Her formal purple dress clung to her like November frost to a car...