Moon Frost

Removed for submission to magazine

Breaking Eclipse of the Twighlit Moon

Removed for Submission

The Scribiner's Song

Ripples in the stream
Come now back to me
Reflections in the dream
Come now back to me
The tearing at the seam
Come now back to me
The tearing of the dream
Come now back to me
With the bone and with the scream
Come now back to me
With the malice and the steam
Come now back to me
Lovers' quarrels soon do heal
Come now back to me
Numbness take all that can feel
Come now back to me
And with the pits and with the peel
Come now back to me
Something's you can't get, only steal
Come now back to me
Dulcet dreams and songs of  night
Come now back to me
The nightingale once more takes flight
Come now back to me
Who can ever recall delight
Come now back to me
My eyes now blind and sans insight
Come now back to me

Come now back to me
If ever I had your song
Come now back to me
If ever you were young
Come now back to me
If your memory is wrong
Come now back to me
If I ever did belong

Book Review: Dave Egger's "A Hologram for the King"

The first thing every reviewer of this book will mention is if you haven't got a hardback copy in hand yet, then go do so! It's cover goes beyond pretty somewhere past the realm of fancy and deep into the dark interiors of decadence. This book's cover is what we bibliofiles have unmentionable dreams about. Thick and soft with deep etched letters and intricate carvings that all gleam with a dull faded gold. You see what I mean...

As for the book itself the title pretty much sums up the concept. The main character, Alan Clay, is in Saudi Arabia to present a demonstration of an American hologram software to the King. Pretty simple, right? Wrong! Dave Eggers could care less about the trite plot line and instead immerses you inside the mind of a man who has to come to terms with that fact that he's lost his steam and can't keep up anymore.

His character is in no way meant to be "Everyman". Alan Clay is optimistic but worn down. Alan Clay is trying as hard as he can but not going anywhere. Alan Clay is persistent and keeps trying to write that letter to his daughter. Alan Clay might have cancer, but he'll just cut the growth off his spine with a serrated hotel knife instead.

And yet, Egger's beautiful ability as a writer comes forward when this character remains intriguing and approachable. Maybe everyone can't relate to Alan Clay, but everyone can get to know him. By the end it's like parting with an old friend. The supporting characters are a bit distant and foreign, but only in the sense that Alan perceives them as such, be that because they are Muslim or because they are Dutch, or because they are women.

 The plot may feel like it's spinning its wheels but not going anywhere either. But it does move around a bit, without really accomplishing anything. And in many ways that's the picture not just of the American in the Saudi desert but the image of America in a world starting to pass it by. An America that still tries so hard, but is slowly losing touch with what it once had.

Eggers however does attempt to leave the reader on a lighter note. Instead of addressing the implications and consequences of Alan Clay's meeting with the King, and the deeper implications of Alan standing for America as well., the ending dissolves into sensory bath of underwater skin, desert light, and the love making that could have been between old bodies. But maybe that would be his vision for America. That the country stop trying to keep up. And start remembering how to really live life.

Or maybe he just wrote a story. A damn good story.

Synchronized Tender Hearts

Tender heart
What other name shall I name you
Perfect gears
In synchronis with mine

Not yet called love
Too early
These first tender leaves
Could mean anything

And yet I know
Tender leaves
Alone means love
Now shall you come?

So I shall smile
Though my mouth forgets its meaning
And I shall weep
For the joy that is you

Oh tender heart
My flame your keeping
Tender be
These leave I've shown only you

Leaf my pages
And read my meaning bare
But leave not my pages
For I so long to share

My tender heart
Be mine and mine forever
Perfect gears
In synchronis with yours

The Killer

Miss Emily's father was a pharmacist, a man of science, back when men of science were neither feared nor respected. His pay was small and he taught classes at the college for the younge men who had not had polio when they were children and had been healthy enough to go to war in far off places called Europe and Iwo Jima and had now returned heroes and victors and had come back to collect their just rewards, their new homes and cars and jobs and careers rung out of the education they were now being given by the men who did not leave, could not leave. Those self same men of science like Miss Emily 's father were the men of science and men of action and who had truly ended the war with two massive displays of science that were still sending shockwaves rippling through history's tides. They were the men of science who would eventually become the ones, the feared and respected. But Miss Emily's father was not one of them. He was small. Always had been a small man. And even when he stood tall he was still a small man on the inside.

Miss Emily's mother had come from a family of bakers. Growing up she never had the hardships her husband had. She had tasted sugar every day since she was two. How she kept her girlish frame through all the years was a secret her mother only shared with her and when the time came she also showed Miss Emily the way in which a woman could eat what she want and keep her form as long as she was subtle. No one was more subtle than her mother.

They must have met over a shared interest in mixing. She mixed hands full of flour and sugar and egg and butter. He mixed tubes of sulpheric oxide and ammonia phosphate. And so with their natural tendency, no, their love for mixing things it is no wonder that their lives mixed together and they were married soon after and had Miss Emily soon after that And so she grew and her mother baked apple pies with thick, rich buttery crumble on top and tried to pretend not to hear the rumors of how "miraculous" it was that a full grown child could be born four months prematurely and how didn't the little miss Emily have the greenest eyes they had ever seen, nothing like the eyes of her father but more the eyes of the good for nothing tramp Henry Phillips that had been her mothers sweetheart before he had abruptly left town, joined the navy, deserted, and soon after her mother and father had started their mixing. Just in time, they might add. She kept baking her buttery apple pies and pretended not to hear the looks.

But Miss Emily's mother was not the only one to hear the talk. Her father was a man of science and had to live under the mockery of the returned young men who neither knew nor cared that men of science were now beings to be feared, beings to be respected, beings who could level entire cityscapes and leave haunted skyscrapers with empty eye sockets. And he had to endure the taunting looks of their young wives as they looked at his wife and his daughter and talked more and more of the man named Henry Phillips with his green eyes. And he started to see his daughter, little Miss Emily in a new light. Her eyes were nothing like his own dark ones. They were indeed the most emerald green he had ever seen. And the devil slowly entered his heart though those dark eyes of his .

For he dared to think surely this is not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone or eye of my eye. No, the abandoned refuse of another man, one of those who had come back from the war, bragging about how many babies they would bring upon the world now. Unaware of the apprehensive look their wives had when they said this. But he had seen the look. And it seemed that all at once his path was clear before him. Everyone of his problems aligned into the perfect solution. So he began to work late at night in his study. He studied new chemicals and made some of his own. He did research and found the old recipes from ancient times in old tomes. And he extracted the 13th volatile from the pomegranates in his backyard. And finally he had the first of the little brown vials. He was ready to begin his tests.

Years passed and it was the glorious summer of free love when vans of kids with guitars and hashish crawled across the countryside spreading the gospel of love and marajuana. But they were shocked to come to a town untouched by tiedye and the smell of weed. An untouched corner of America where the old men who had once been young men who came back from the war as victors now looked out on the empty swing sets they had built and the unused tricycles in their garages with old and empty eyes. Their wives eyes and bodies were still young and untouched by the marring of bearing child after child after child. And there was one man of science in the town who knew and kept the secret of their youth. One old man of science who had the most subtle of wives who slid the small dark vials into the corners of the basket that held her buttery apple pies. He was a man of science and finally respected.

The lack of children should have been a warning. Instead it was like a magnet. Bus after bus brought these new men who did not shave or have gleaming eyes for war in far off places. And the new women who wove their hair with flowers and knew the secret ways and had no need for the small brown vials that were snuck in with the buttery apple pies. And soon Miss Emily's father had no more need to extract the 13th volatile from the pomegranates in their backyard. And he put away his books.

And Miss Emily who was by now a sixteen year old felt herself drawn by curiosity to the strange new additions to the town who wore flowers in their hair and beards on their faces and who slept each night under the stars, wrapped in blankets of thick, hazy smoke rising from a hundred smoldering joints. She began to come to the bonfires. Then she began to spend the nights under the stars in her own hazy blanket. That was how she first met him.

Night Ceremony

I did exactly as I was told. I pulled the red shorts on that were too big. Red, they had said, symbolizes the red earth, the red blood, the red rage of war. The shorts were a bit too big but that didn't matter, they said, no they were the only red ones I had so they would have to do. Then came the black shirt (black for night, death, sleep, and the hidden things) and the green hoodie (had to be a hoodie, something with a hood, they said, because we would not want to offend the headless by appearing with our heads visible).

The next part involved supplies. It was a laundry list that could have been ordinary for any kind of hike. Except this hike was happening at night. Midnight to be precise. On August 1st, the night of the first full moon. The night that was marked by ancient people as Lammas, the first of the Autumn feasts. But I didn't know that at the time and I really didn't care. I was just doing as they had told me.

You will need a candle, she had said, as she fleeted around the edged of the mirror frame, and a knife to slice it in two. Two candles now, that had been one. The one I placed in front of the mirror. The other, I slid in my pocket. Next was the bottle. Full of ice cold water, straight from the fridge. I poured it over my hands, my feet, my head. That was for purifying, they had said. Apparently taking a normal bath wasn't good enough. But then again, they have a lot of funny rules when it comes to this kind of stuff. Like making sure all the water fell on some kind of dirt. I just used a potted plant. That would do, right?

Next came the lighter, lighting the candle in front of the mirror, I slid it into my pocket next to the candle half. Then I took the water bottle and filled it with water from the tap. Back in front of the mirror she told me, now hold the water over the flame and pass it through it thrice. Thrice? Really? Who says that anymore? Why not just three times? But I did and it changed color, turning an amber gold. She seemed to approve.

You're a fast learner for a boy, she sniffed, even though in my time we did not let boys take the walk. I asked her why not but she wouldn't say. Instead she ordered me more (pour some out into a cup, its called a libation) and then curled into the mirror with silver tendrils. Sometimes I wished my grandmother had never given me the mirror. But not tonight, tonight it was finally going to pay off. All the months and months of befriending the girl who appeared in the reflection, peaked around corners in the mirror at me.

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the final thing required. A piece of bread. She had said it should be fresh baked but this was the best I could do on short notice. I walked down the stairs and out the door but as I was about to close it I heard a soft sussurus on the wind. I waivered. She appeared in tendrils of silver.

You cannot leave yet, she spoke to me in haunting underwater echoes, you must drink of the bottle in your hand, so that you may have protection. I didn't realize I would need protection, but I took a swig anyway. Whatever the water had turned into it tasted very much like the rum and raisin pie my mom had always made when I was young. But it was much less sweet, with the force and the burn of a thousand fires tickling my tonsils and burning down my esophagus to go lie in my stomach like a sliver of molten led glowing at my core.

Now you are safeguarded until you reach the stones, she said and was gone in her tendrilly way, as I moved away from the door and down the road. It was a familiar road, but as all things take on a haunted look in the pale contrasting light of the full moon, I now found this road to be omniously chilling. I stepped on anyway.

The air was motionless, no wind to make the leaves scratch along the concrete. Which made it sound a million times louder when I stepped on one of the crunchy ones. But there wasn't time to stop and freak out properly. I knew where they wanted me to go. I had known somehow, even before they had told me. There would be the ridge and the blackberry bushes and the old stones sitting on top of each other on the trail that ran on the ridge above the houses. I had been there a few weeks before when the very first blackberries had come into fruit. Tonight the air would be heavy and warm with their sweet perfume.

But my thoughts were interrupted by the voice wheezing beside me from the thinnest air as it breathed, In ancient times we would go up in hordes. Thousands and Thousands of us would go and make a bonfire on  the hill and we would drink the water of life and we would dance naked under the stars and the bright silver moon. But that was a long time ago and now only we ghost are left to walk with you up the hill, it wheezed as it flew by. To anyone else it looked like a dragonfly. Though of course real dragonflies don't fly around at night. Not like these. They rose around me, Thousand and Thousands of them as I kept walking to the cul de sac where the road ended and the trail would begin.

Beware the Hound of God who guards the way, breathed the ghosts as they flitted away on false dragonfly wings. There was no hound in sight. Nothing but a porche parked on the curb next to where the trail started. It sat and its glossy coat of paint radiated sleek sharpness against the pale black of night. It was a whole other shade of black. A black that could cut life a knife and still gleam with hunger.

"Hound of God you say?" I whispered to the still night.