The Butcher’s Bones

Crushing, bleak and break,
the mechanisms of my matter
are corroded by salt —
they are choked with sand.

Ripping, tear and rake,
the solutions of my mind
are dry from wind —
they are thieved by sun.

River, ocean and lake,
the brittle hull of my bones
arches for touch —
it is weathered by surf.

Yet I am tethered by the gull’s cry,
a wrinkled goodbye —
you are terrible in ropes and weaves and cuffs.

Hope pleads the darkness from the butcher’s eye,
lips feed a thousand lies —
I cannot conjure love enough or trust
      before time turns our hearts to dust.

The Song

You can’t live on it — the feeling.
The contraction of a guitar string,
Such anticipation.
The tankard’s dark, swirling abyss,
Pulse softening.

You can’t live on it —
The flowering of the voice,
Mighty introduction.
The kaleidoscope of colors,
Primal attraction.

You can’t live on it —
The pained pleading chorus,
Lingering mourning.
The ear’s consumption,
Desirous firing.

You can’t live on it —
The final note’s breaking,
Grappling desperation.
The ghostly vibrations of silence,
Deafening denial.

You can’t, you can’t —
Not but for those moments of song,
Pitch pointed, perfect and pure,
Magnetic and hypnotizing in its way.

In those moments you can, you can.
You can live on it.

Stay

Stiffen your arm and raise the sword.
When the monster of weariness grabs hold,
When life’s demons fire your heart,
Scuff your heel and take stance.
When chaos bawls and the winds of loneliness roar,
When the dark endures and battle blood flows,
Grit your teeth and persist.

Forever the dawn breaks as night’s child.
Hope spills sunlight on your spirit,
Warmth in your eyes,
Flashing silver on your chest,
So, stay.
No matter the trial or beast.
Stay.

We are Like Ravens

The raindrops are gray ravens, their call resounding in his ears and brushing at his full cheeks with a feathery and woeful constant. He exhales spirit mists into the blue dawn and rests his tired spine against the slippery wooden bones of the hut’s exterior. There has been a sound in his mind since she left, something like a sigh, a whisper, or a wanting suggestion of desire on the wind, the kind that whistles through the trees and around mountain passes during the winter’s coldest chill.

He pushes his bare toes into the black earth and reaches, eyes closed, for the worn wooden lyre at his side. The sky’s weeping moistens and swells the soundbox and bridge, and like tears on lashes, it slips off the horsehair strings. He is a dark echo of Freyr, conjuring the day’s weeping with his existence, but revolving and drowning in this boggy domain so far in his mind from anything that resembles a shining sun.

Continue reading “We are Like Ravens”

The Anniversary

Lines flag the throat and knees are noise,
but I remember the time back —
the easy sun when we were young.

Rotations and revolutions see tender changes,
from flowers, jewels and racing hearts,
to coffee drips, notes and evening’s tired hellos

There’s wear on the bridge and the back aches —
sameness fades as time rides the tide,
but I remember the time back —
when the fresh snows fall, or the calm rain,
the pour of a drink in a clean cup, or the ocean waves.

We, together, a timeless love song
that I cannot be without.

The Faraway

Open the door to the stars and lead me.
Jagged dark, the backdrop to moonlit points on restless waters.
Twinkle, lightyears away, our breath frosting in the void.
I am clawing for locks and keys and the respite of the shining light …

in your hollows,

in your center.

Rainbow auroras, the swipe swirl of fingers,
and lips whispering of faraway places in the sky.

It’s a new day, it’s a new site

Oh, my. It’s really been a minute since my last post, and by a minute, I mean 1,340,700 minutes. Geez, where does the time go? Right. Hello, crushing and life-altering worldwide pandemic. How could I forget thee? *widens eyes; smiles crazily*

The truth of it is, life is a constant pressure and if you’re an empath like me, our current climate can prove very challenging and even paralyzing when it comes to the flow of the creative juices. I appreciate people who can power through and create art while in a room on fire, but me? Not so much. Twenty-twenty saw a whole lot of me wasting away on the couch — too overwhelmed and terrified to complete some of the most basic tasks. I’m not kidding. Sometimes even mustering up the energy to take a shower last year was a monumental feat. So, never mind writing custom copy for a personal blog. Anyway, anything that I would have been likely to write satirically in the last 365 days would have probably been dark and bleak, and not exactly … right.

These things aside, I have found it within my ability to scrawl a few short lines of narrative copy in the past two years, as well as a smattering of romantic poetry and some haiku. Folks who follow me on social media aren’t strangers to my crowing about feeling as though I don’t have an appropriate outlet for my work. I consider myself a rather sensible realist, and yet, I will admit that I wasted more time complaining than exploring a solution to my problem, which was really under my nose the entire time.

This website started as a blog where I could post occasional rants about the challenges associated with the ongoing joys of adulthood, and although I think that effort was cathartic and amusing, the specific content I needed to create to keep it going was not reflective of me in my entirety. As are all humans, I am angled in many different ways and peppered with inspiration and feelings that are born of many sources, and therefore, it’s unfair for me to try to direct my creativity along one alley to a particular destination when it’s simply unnecessary.

This year felt like a good one to overhaul this site for it to function as my creative portfolio and personal website. So, instead of sticking purely with satire, I’m going to use this platform to share my poetry, vignettes, haiku, and romantic/historical fiction pieces (also, my resume – why not?). Everything will be tagged so that if you’re interested in poetry, you’ll be able to locate the posts easily; the same thing with vignettes, etc. I suspect I will conjure up a post or two that will feel on-brand for The Stumble is Real, but only time will tell.

Thanks a lot for visiting this site! I’d be grateful for some interaction, so if you’d like to leave a comment or two, please feel free.

Cheers. Stay jaunty.