Category Archives: poem

Blackbird Singing: Vincent’s Descent – AtoZ Blogging Challenge

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Blackbird Singing: Vincent’s Descent – AtoZ Blogging Challenge

Chapter Two: Blackbird Singing

            “I’m tired,” Vincent croaked, biting into the blackbird’s wing. He mangled the hollow bones underneath its feathers, cleaving them with his teeth. The blackbird had gotten too close; the tip of its beak had tapped the membrane of Vincent’s left eye. His central vision grew soft, distorted, and blurry.

            “I’m tired.” Involuntarily said as he bit deeper. Vincent spat out blood and feathers.

            “I’m tired,” he laughed, feeling a short sharp shock against his cheek.

            A black mass fluttered in front of Vincent; two more whisked overhead. He stood, again the words “I’m tired” levitated from his cracked lips. As the dropped “…d” moved away, Vincent surged backward, knocking over the chair he had been affixed to.

The wood clattered on the concrete floor.  

            “Vincent!”

            A door slammed open, then shut.

            “Vincent!”

            A whooping assault of sound. Vincent felt shoved, pinned, his back pressed against a rock-hard surface. The noise pelted him; he repeatedly repeated, “I’m tired,” his voice modulating in tone, speed, and volume.

            Rain, he thought. I wish it were raining. The sound of it falling; swallows harshness, makes things softer. It patterns against the windows, a tapping of drops. Not always followed by the clap of thunder, which can break the dulling.

 Snow, maybe. Yes, it is always quiet when it snows. Big, white constant drifting of snow. Cold enough that it coated everything. Yes, I wish it were snowing. Dead of night. It would cover the blackbirds, a glaze of white over their wings, chilling their breaths, cutting off their voices, preventing them from flying, freezing them, immobilizing them, until their innards iced over, their parasites in stasis, easily caught, necks twisted, my being able to gouge their eyes out, my hands…

            His head dropped to his chin, eyelids closing. Vincent took in a breath for a count of five, held for four, then expelled for a count of eight, jaw fully extended.

            Again.

            “I’m tired.” Barely audible.

            A lighter claw alit on his shoulder.

            “I know, Vincent. I know,” a demur cackle, guiding him back, pushing him down onto the again upright chair. “I know. Would you open your eyes, please?”

            He acknowledged this voice. Different.

            “I’m tired, Maria.”

            Picking up his head, his eyelids followed the trajectory. “Dr. Maria.” He nodded his head to the doorway.

            “I sent…asked your lawyer to leave us for a few so we could speak. And yes, the guard as well.”

            Vincent took it as truth.

            “Vincent, she doesn’t know you.”

            “She’s afraid.”

            Maria put her arms on the table between them, nodding.

            “Why do you think that?”

            Moments filled the eight-by-eight room. The HVAC clicked off, taking the underscore of humming with it.

            Vincent shrugged. Mimicking his doctor, Vincent placed his arms on the table. He felt his hands were sticky. Looking down, he saw they were dripping black-red.

            “Why do you think she is afraid of you, Vincent?”

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: April 2023

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Blogging from A to Z Challenge: April 2023




Please check out the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge
#AtoZChallenge
a-to-zchallenge.com

The annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge begins tomorrow, April 1st, 2023. For those of you unfamiliar with it, those joining in are asked to create 26 posts during the month. The title of each day follows the alphabet, with April 1st using the letter A, the next post starting with B, and so on, with Z falling on April 30th.

All those in the challenge are asked to post a reflection on May 1st.

I started this blog in 2011, joining my first A to Z that year. I’ve been intermittent with my commitment to the challenge since then. It has been a couple of years since my last foray. This is also a very last-minute entry into the challenge. We were supposed to do this much earlier in March.

Procrastinators unite tomorrow?

What To Do?

For those of you who have followed me, you know I am partial to a serialized story as opposed to one-and-done. This year will be no exception. I will do my editing best for brevity, but we also know that that promise can easily go out the window depending on the day’s writing.

So, Rum Ball, please…or Black and White Cookie (preferred):

Vincent

Theme: psychological horror/thriller.

Make of that what you will.

See you tomorrow?

Comments are always welcome.

IOTA

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Wrote you a love letter

Then tore it up to bits

Took the shredded pieces

Threw them in a pit

Setting it on fire

Watched the passion glow

Each piece flared from another

The flames of nevermore



Wrote you a love letter

Knew I would not send

Wrote you a love letter

Sealed it with my blood



Stood there with the ashes

As they crumbled away

The wind sent some flying

Forever out of reach

The seasons took the rest

Let it slip away

Walked away in silence

Left behind a stain



Wrote you a love letter

Knew I would not send

Wrote you a love letter

Words etched in my head



Wrote you love, and

Sealed it with my blood


Contemplation on Liquid Time: 2021 A to Z Blogging Challenge Reflection

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Edmund Dulac ~ 1910

Master List for A to Z Reflection: Posts (Others)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

Woman meets Woman. Women split. Misdeeds and transmogrifications happen. Women become one. ℵ2+. Time is a douche. Love rules. The end.

What was this all about, Stu?

In the end, Love. You may argue this, but for me it was about Love. There are many interpretations of Love the emotion and Love the word. Then there is a sliding scale for every iteration. Love astray. Love together. Love.

Add Love with: Existentialism + Nihilism + Greek Mythology + Block Universe Theory + Quote: “Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away.” by Kurt Vonnegut + Quote: “Time is an illusion” by Albert Einstein + Time Conceptualization & its relation to what we’ve been experiencing in the last year plus + the quotes I used, all picked out before I began the challenge + Philosophy + Physics + Math + Assorted Doodads =Liquid Time.

No animals were harmed during the writing of Liquid Times. No drugs were a part in its evolution.

My experience(s) with Liquid Time

I put in a shit-load of research, playing around with (and still hating) the formatting of the “new” WordPress Block Editor. And, of course, writing the darn thing. I gave myself many stress headache moments, simply because I am a Pantster and write my A to Z post ON THE DAY as the letters roll by. I usually have Story Beats/Story Spine floating somewhere in my mind, but as the characters & plotting develops, I may end up in a whole different direction. 2019s A Car In the Woods (Science Fiction/Horror/Thriller, 27 posts) is a prime example of that. I originally planned 26 separate flash fiction pieces on the theme. By D, I dropped that idea as it became a larger whole story.

So it goes.

Liquid Time was unlike any other of my A to Z’s in that I had NO CLUE what to do with it. Time has been on my mind for a long while. That was the starting point, and my meandering tangent mind went where it went. I also knew that this needed a very different approach in how I tackled the subject(s). Plus, I needed to really challenge myself in writing style(s); I started to feel I was getting in a semi-rut. As I was discovering the story along the way, I pushed myself even harder.

Tales of Tale Spinning will bring you to a listing of my previous A to Z worlds. You’ll get what I mean.

As to the overall mechanics of Liquid Time:

The color blocking (or with specific words/concepts) are all related to the normally accepted meanings of those colors. Slight variations occurred as needed: Red could be anger or danger. The context around it drove the interpretation. The colors themselves will most likely need to be excised if this is to be taken further. I am thinking on what to change and how.

I choose to work with the line verifications (left-middle-right) with a variety of thoughts: POV change, dialogue without the “she said/he said” designations of who was speaking, change in the style (prose vs pinprick, almost bullet-like, actions/thoughts), free-form poetics, and one or three other things. You might realize that I do not like conjunctive words and did my best to minimize their use.

The formatting on this drove me crazy. The Block Editor of WordPress (great horror story title) that I hate with a passion. The inability to highlight one word or idea without the entire block changing really threw me for a frustrated loop. Same with adding color to one word/name. Couldn’t do it as a whole.

A lot of my “choppy” lines were forced on me due to this not being really user friendly. Probably the only positive out of this whole formatting mishigas.

As to the rest: I know that Liquid Time was challenging to read. I did my best to reincorporate things I threw down. The big one I never came back to was the Snow/Ice demoness from the first of Janaculum. If I DO return to LT, she will definitely play a bit of a larger role, in a way. Does the letter K connect anything for you?

Also, If you’ve read my previous work, you should know I’m not a big fan of spelling everything out. I enjoy books where I have to dig to get it or let my interpretation be and move on. Cloud Atlas, Ulysses, and other books anyone?

I saw by stats that I had a decent readership with a larger reach than last year. Yet, I had a HUGE drop in comments after the first five posts. I know I blew it on my blog hopping and I plan to rectify it. Liquid Time was too much, at Times. Pun intended. So, pretty disappointing, but as Lou Reed sang at the end of Perfect Day: “You’re going to reap just what you sow.”

Bottom Line: will I be back for next year’s A to Z? I plan to, but who the heck knows what the frig I will be up to in 2022. So, most likely yes. Maybe. Probably. We’ll see.

Time will tell.

What’s A to Z April Blogging Challenge Got To Do With This?

Created in 2009 by Arlee Bird, the A to Z Blogging Challenge has united hundreds (thousands?) of Bloggers throughout the Blogaverse. If you blog, you can join & post 26 times during the month of April, beginning on April 1st and ending on April 30th. Sundays “off” for good behavior. I’ve been involved with the challenge since 2011, not participating a few times. I’ve been introduced to many bloggers whom I may never have come across without the A to Z; many I can now call friends. There are too many to link to at the moment. Look at the commenters from April 1st forward on Tale Spinning. That’ll be a good start.

Arlee has had a semi-rotating team of amazing talent surrounding the event(s) and the site(s). They all need a big hand of applause. This year, his co-host team has been: J Lenni Dorner, Zalka Csenge Virág , John Holton, Jayden R Vincente , and Jeremy Hawkins . Please click on their names to visit their blogs. To find the other bloggers who participated:

What was hiding in the background?

By the Way:

HEADS UP:

I am most likely moving Tale Spinning to Blogger by the end of May. I’m in the setting up phase, doing my best so it looks and acts like I’d like it to. Tale Spinning Redux. I’ll announce when the time is right to end my time with WordPress and go back to Blogger. Gotta figure how to link up all of my work here to a new hosting site. Not today. Headache arose just writing that.

Please remember that Comments Are Always Welcome.

Thank you, EVERYONE.

XAIN: Liquid Time A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

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A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

XAIN

LIQUID TIME

“Time is a feature of creation, and the creator remains apart from it, transcendent over it.” ~ ~ James Gleick

EVERYWHEN

Ananke

Is witness to all beginnings; to all ends.

The End of All Things rips apart the progenitor with every erasure.

Erasures are Endless.

Endless.

There is nothing to measure.

It is or it is not.

Everything Is.

(☿+♀+☾+♂+♃+♄+♅+♆+♇+☼)+∞³⋝ω

Khronos is a part of the process, as is

Ananke

They were

♁ ⋝ t (⨍⨳⊎∞) =⨿

Khronos upset the balance

The Screams Must Stop

JANICULUM

(ZV) feels the sacred knife from their temple slice into the ethereal-corporal sync they have manifested. They feel a rift, a change, yet pain is of the past, not the present. What comes can not be seen from here. They have been severed from an aspect of themselves that has left the feeling of <.

Only for that time of piercing

A great severing occurred.

They experience the force within them ascend to a higher intensity

What was a standstill finds Khronos waver

Wavered

Khronos meets level meeting level

Balance happens

Khronos identifies the truth

(ZV) shares the truth

Awareness that the blade Ἀστερία bore sliced through the other

Ἀστερία‘s discorporation fused with her screams

A union of screams merged with Ἀστερία‘s

(ZV) + Khronos took notice

SHE is

LAB

FLOAT POD

CONNECTS

  • VALENTINA AND ZEHARA
    • Were profoundly in love
    • Each were admired
    • One for high status in the scientific world
    • One for great physical beauty
    • It went to their egos
    • It split them apart
    • The hurt went both ways
  • Valentina found backing for her project
    • Science + Transcendentalism
    • Taking the mind to next levels
    • Valentina threw herself all in
  • Zehara suffered and drifted
    • Hurt, alone, falling into the darkest shadows
    • Tried to commit suicide on Government land
    • Valentina’s lab was housed there
    • Recovering, an offer came
    • She took it
  • Karen
    • Jealousy ruled her ego
    • She easily acquiesced to Government intrusion
      • Valentina did not know
      • Z did not know
    • Another intruded with a thought of a touch
  • The Float Pod
    • Z vanished
    • V vanished
    • The Lab, the Float Pod, the Screams
  • K was noticed
  • elsEwhens
    • (ZV)
    • Khronos
    • Ἀστερία
    • Ananke
    • Everywhen/where/what/who

THIS IS

COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME

VARIABLES PROTRACTED: Liquid Time A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

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A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

VARIABLES PROTRACTED

LIQUID TIME

“Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment. That is what’s real.” ~ ~ Sara Paddison

JANICULUM

The Oracle of the Peak leaps from the outcrop

The sacred knife is raised

Blood smeared from tip to hilt

The Oracle’s descends at the rate of 10-21 seconds, a trillionth of a billionth of a second.

She becomes her own variables, phasing through every who she is/was/might be

Her scream is infinite

At a standstill, the god and the goddess

Clash for control over the other

Seek non-existence for the other

Fight for what is theirs

He was right; they were wrong

They were right; he was wrong

Time hangs in a balance

The scale does not tip

Still, The Oracle of the Peak falls

As she prophesized in dreams

In her dealings with the dead

Seeing the future

Living all of her linear pasts

Breathing through all of her linear moments

Seeing nothing nothing nothing

Of what’s to come of her

She falls, with the sacred knife now in both hands

She screams, with the sacred knife now thrust forward

Ἀστερία

The Oracle of the Peak’s name

Ἀστερία falls, and as she does

The sacred knife plunges into

Prebiotic organic synthesis ooze

Ἀστερία’s screeches fades…

THIS IS NOT

LAB

FLOAT POD

CONNECT

A touch of a thought
Breaks the seal of the trap
The shrieks, set free,
Coalesce
The particles bond
A form arises
Changes pitch and tone
A Goddess, intervenes
They have somewhen to be 



COMMENTS & FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED

WICK LAUGHTER (& an AtoZ Apology)

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Standing true
Waiting to be ignited
It comes
An action
The gift is seized
Levity flares
Glittering bright
Until it is blown out
And darkens the night

So, about that A to Z Blogging Challenge, 2021…

I am NOT throwing in the towel. I’m not giving up. Not gonna happen.

What is happening is that Happenings got in my way. Life. Sucks.

I will do my best to post S before midnight 4/23, then catch up over the weekend.

  • T is for Saturday, 4/24
  • U will be Sunday, 4/25
  • V is Monday, 4/26
  • W is Tuesday, 4/27
  • X is Wednesday, 4/28
  • Y is Thursday, 4/29
  • Z is Friday, 4/30
  • (There might be one last piece on May 1. We’ll see).
  • Final Reflection: 5/4 or 5/5

I hope you enjoy this little ditty. The idea started from a comment I made on Brewing Coffee, Twisting Words & Breaking Pencils.

Give Shari a visit. You’ll be glad you did.

RETRO ACTIVE≡SPECTIVE: Liquid Time A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

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A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

RETRO ACTIVE≡SPECTIVE

LIQUID TIME

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

JANICULUM

elsEwhen ∞

Z is drawn back to Janiculum

V is drawn back to Janiculum

Timelessly

Flawless, pristine

War ravaged, wasteland

The Gates of Prógramma Spoudón

Open, barred, derelict

The streets, the homes, the shops, the temple

Upright, tumbled

Green, rocky terrain to the spires

Decomposing back to green

Merged (ZV) or apart (Z) (V)

To Janiculum they come

This Moment, among many many many

their presences announce themselves
there, now together
they're flowing into the others arms
hugging, stroking, tender
cheeks, napes, torsos
the lips, the lips
fingers glide along protein rich strands of keratin
lengths, volumes, grow to moods
all for the other
the want
the need
the caresses'
the hunger
the anger
forgiveness
understanding
accepting
tactile, stimulations
deeper, horridly,
gasps, roars,
trembling, quaking, shudders
breath
remember to
they hold each other/themself
the mantle of the goddess Alcyeyx is restored
Janiculum passed around (ZV)
sending ripples
sending ripples

sending

KHRONOS, aware

feels the audacious usurpers

takes in the arrogance

their nescient control of power

(ZV) are not comparable to the Gods

The Titian rises

End of the 2nd Arc

The Final Arc begins tomorrow:

SIDEREAL PARADOX

COMMENTS & FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS WELCOME

QUAIL, IN‽ : Liquid Time A to Z Blogging Challenge 2021

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QUAIL, IN‽

LIQUID TIME

Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.” ~ ~ Rose Kennedy

(ZV) withered

(Compositions + Substance) Bond

Broke

A rupture

Null unit { }

Z

V

Unjoined

The moment slipped out of their control





elsEwhen Z

anger anguish escalate/s/d to nth level extremes bringing a mind blankness overruled by the raging mixture of emotions Z had no awareness of the deaths the sundering caused in Z’s wake diseases transferred at rates unimaginable when all Z was brought to islands of quiet of peace of centering only to be jaunted into the swirls of destructive force to return to peace to seek out violence to destroy to quiet to all things detrimental all until Z challenged Khronos who slapped Z down rejected rejected snubbed erased until





elsEwhen V
V filtered through equations, all equations
Dispelling the soul freezing zemblanity
That washed over and through V
To return to equations, formulas,
Routine
While suffering this travesty of moments
That soothed, touched, cherished, ached
That itched, burned, chilled, ached
In a melody of high bliss
Counterbalanced by exquisite agony
An emotional/pragmatic overload
Where it all led to Khronos
Who had no sense of V
Draining V
until

JANICULUM CALLED TO THEM

ON – Ω – OFF: Liquid Time A to Z Blog Challenge 2021

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ON – Ω – OFF

LIQUID TIME

“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” ~ ~ Miles Davis

TRANSITION

Karen will think/thinks/have thought OH SHIT!

Dr. Karen Capri envisages/verbalizes those words in the seven languages she speaks/thinks fluently.

Dr Capri has/had/will have the connective process to acknowledge what is before her endlessly

She is clinically absorbing an infinite vocabulary of experience across layers

That have layers intersecting mirrored rows of layers

Karen feels the emotional spectrum pour out of her

Her thinking process goes limp

(ZV) is floating there

Now Valentina

Then Zehara

Z

Karen has hated them

Individually

Especially together

If she could, Karen would clench her teeth, growling

They had gotten in her way way too many times

They are in her way now

Sensations go misty

She tries to fight the violation

Karen fails in every single way, across every possibility

Z knows/knew what was done to her

V now knows what was done to Z

Not even a blink: Dr. Capri is peeled away

TRANSITION

LAB

FLOAT POD CONNE

Interred 
The leaded pod
Door sealed into one piece
Lies a howling, a wail, a shriek
A keening lament
A fragile cord

One not heard, never to be
Plight of one's destiny
Or not

GRB 080916C burst
K is undone

The scream continues

Ω

Hmmm…an interesting Saturday post.

Oh, it is Sunday, you say

Hmmm…oh, yes,

My apologies

Monday Comes with a P

COMMENTS & FEEDBACK ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED