The God-send (thus far as it goes, more to come-- maybe)

"Sir, we have permeation through the first layer of dermal tissue."

"Suction," Millard Hanson kept his eye averred from the creature's own.

"Stop!" his grandmother's voice sounding within his ear.

"There's another sheathing plate beneath. I need the bone saw."

"We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home"...

"Sir, are you alright?"

"Yes," he said as he looked down at the blood upon his hands. It was near as of his grandmother was haunting him now.

Grandma Crane was one of the people, that as a child, he had been forbidden to see. It was her son, his mother's oldest brother that had brought them together when Millard was eight years old. His father had always told him that the old woman was crazy, and was probably dead by now.

Crazy by white standards, assuredly.

"I wonder that sh... that it doesn't feel"...

"I wonder that I could get some god-damn suction where it might do some good," Millard snapped at his lead surgery nurse, Alma Persh. He shocked reaction had made it quite obvious that she had not expected something like that from him. She lowered the stainless steel nozzle into the opened body cavity as the strange black ichor continued to seep away from the fibrous matter that served as this... creature's, flesh.

"We are contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit made them."

Grandma Crane had made and sold Chief Joseph plaques, the only other tradition that she seemed to hold was more one of necessity than of clinging to the old ways. She made much of what she had in the old house trailer on the south knoll, nearly entirely surrounded by an immense bog that was a small inland lake. Her son, Millard's uncle Jake, had helped her along as well as he could, while still providing for his own family.

Grandma Crane had a goat she called Matilda, and a crow that would come to her door every morning to be fed and seemingly pass the day before it flew away in the evening. She called him Beggar Tom. She had told him about when she had first "met" him, one of several in a nest that had been abandon. She had tried to keep them all alive, but Tom was the only one that had survived.

"I could keep him alive and even managed to get him flying, but I couldn't really teach him how to be a crow. He does not go with the other crows, and I found him one morning a bit worse for wear. I do not think they accept him as a crow, but still I keep him alive. Now," she said, as if mildly begrudging the bird her act of kindness, "He has learned that I will keep him alive, so he comes here to be fed."

"My heart would suffer from his death."

"There's the fetus," his newly appointed assistant pointed out the obvious. "You said you had her here for how long now?"

"Years," was Millard's close, quick response, near like a retort.

"The gestational period is unknown?"

"Does it really matter?" Millard sighed as his eye glanced over towards the needle.

"We're losing her Doctor," Alma interjected into his own thoughts.

Grandma Crane had told him that she had married a good man, but a poor one. That he still had managed to provide enough for her and the children. It was Uncle Jake that told him that his mother had come to loath their poverty, through the years of being taunted by her peers and fellow classmates. He said that he had only met his father twice.

He never told his father that he knew them, that they had actually come to find him. Millard Hanson Sn could have made life even more difficult for them... It wasn't so much that he could as that he would, and that was the one missing part of the equation. He could not understand his father's abject contempt of them, his disgust.

Millard knew he could keep her alive... against her will. How well he had come to know her in those years of... captivity? That there was nothing that could be shared, as far as active conversation between them, the passive communication of her moods and reactions had become more than predictable. That these creatures were some wild and vile creatures that could not be reached, that they were presumed generally ignorant, evil and... god-less...

"It's them or us son, there is no middle ground."

"Then why didn't they attack me Colonel? I have no fort, no army. We both know my thirty-thirty isn't going do much damage against them."

"LOOK!" The Colonel's arm jerking towards the television screen where unedited and uncensored broadcasts from the military's own cameras had filmed the destruction of Madrid, Berlin, Paris...

Once Tender, Twice Young Alice

Feeding memories
to the heart's devils--
Desperation wins
chasing ecstasy slow
down upon the soul
of white rabbits

'Wanting me?'
she laughs, unsettled
like morphine, dark
within the hollow chamber--
beating time,
rock-abye heart

Back to the wall.
They say there is daylight
on the otherside--
A nicotine religion,
psalms of the deviant,
A shot, the Judas-kiss
caught straight between the eyes

"The dream is all you got,'
The suicide ball
hanging on the edge
of her pocket--
Dirty pool and smooth bourbon rules

The ice melts...

Taking it out of body
for another round,
"It doesn't matter who wins."
'It doesn't matter who wins?'
"We'll just screw one another
over, and over, anyways."

Sleep isn't coming
anytime soon;
Feeding the dead
to the heart's devils--
Desperation wins
chasing ecstasy slow
down upon the soul
of white rabbits.

Peace,
Po

Nocturina: Cavity

*Suggested by a challenge to write some dark bit using the word "Cavity", this is what I thunked up. Too long to be actually used in the challenge itself, still-- I writed it and can post it here. (Especially in the absence of any finished stories I have left here, mostly deliberately) Roughly 2180 wds, which could be longer if I opt to write more at some point and use this as a prelude. However, as the contemporary style and overly mechanical, trite plot set up tends to bore me-- this may be as good as it gets, unless I figure out a way to spice it up some.

I hemmed and hawed about including it into the Nocturina, opinions, criticisms very welcome

Okay, I'll hush.

smiles & waves
Po*


Cecelia Montaigne moved through the narrow recess of the ancient road, which seemed to burrow deeper into the bowel beneath the city. It was as if her heart had sunk, that the day after she had received the grant and had finally arrived in Napoli that Vesuvius would start acting up and the site closed down for nearly a week after the volcanic tremors had threatened to end her first field study even before it had started.

There had been a mud-slide in the early centuries of the common era. Not quite so devastating as its sister-city Pompei, in as far as human fatalities were considered, but still it had taken the entire city and submerged it in a thick and heavy coat... It would be a few years before anybody ventured to rebuild it. Eventually, the horrible episode would be virtually forgotten, until World War 2 had started and the blasts from airplane bombings had broken through the hardened volcanic stone unto a subterranean layer.

Her first assignment was hardly so exciting as a new discovery or a fresh excavation, but there were still literally miles of old Napoli that had yet to be uncovered. Just to be here was exciting enough, but then she had landed and had only been here a few hours when the first tremor hit.

The engineers had, finally, declared the area safe and Cecelia was the first to go down and enter the site. She was awe-struck at how this old, once, Roman city had been so well preserved by the century old mud-slide. She had not gone but a few feet when her heart sunk a little, as the volcanic tremors had obviously had some ill effect and the wall of an old apothecary shop had caved in. But that disappointment was brief, in as her eye adjusted to the room and the sparse light from the lamp on her helmet when she noticed a small dark cavity, little more than a crevice that had seemingly been gradually eroded away. Brown icor, like mold or rust had infected these walls and had gradually worn through some unforeseeable weak point in the small cramped structure. Cecelia's heart leapt as she realized that there was more than meets the eye-- much more-- as she shone her light through into a much wider and vaster chamber that the volcano had uncovered for her.

The mortar literally crumbled away as she managed to move the first stone, with some effort. There was something alike adrenalin pouring through her veins, and a dogged determination to pass through into this place that she was certain had not been seen by human eyes for centuries. She had nearly accomplished the first removal, which may have likely been just wide enough for her to be able to squeeze through and see inside; when she began to hear what she was sure were voices.

"Hello?" she called out, and heard some quick and indiscernible whispering before everything fell silent again. "Bonjourno!" She spoke a little louder, regretting her own ignorance of the native language. Arabic, some Latin, and some Greek she could speak more fluently, but any of the more modern languages were lost on her. She had brought a pocket translator, but in her haste to get the site, had not bothered to bring it along. "Are you alright?" She gave up trying to remember any of the few Italian phrases she knew that might apply to this situation. Strangely, she doubted her ability to order a decent meal and the common decencies were likely to get her by.

There was a quiet giggling and a muted cackle sound in response to her call.

The irritation was enough to get her back to work on the stone. If they were well enough to giggle, there must obviously be some other access to this strange dark cavity that she could not see much more than a well preserved Roman floor and perhaps the outer edge of a mosaic that had been inset in the center of this chamber. Her hopes of a new discovery seemed pointless now, though she still wanted to see what it was that Vesuvius had uncovered. The stone fell with a hollow sort of echoing, something that struck her with the fresh fascination that this room or chamber must be immense.

There was now enough room for her to pass, though not comfortably. She had considered trying to dislodge another stone, but her anticipation of what laid beyond the old wall kept little patience. Jumping up slightly and using her hands to guide her into and through the small cavity-- her eyes blinking as she shone the light about as far as it would pass into the blackness of the room.

... "The absorption in flesh
is gradual reduction of the senses,
a calm mask, for the heart is a maniac"

and only these dreams can keep them apart."..

Cecelia nearly dropped her flashlight as what had started as a loud buzzing and ringing in her ears had become strangely discernible into words-- Latin to be precise. The translation came a little too easily into her head, irregardless to what kind of voice(?) may have produced it. The words were something like the sound an old juice-harp might produce, or the sounds of the instrument the Austrailian bushmen would play... a little like Peter Frampton's buzz box on his guitar too. It was s short step from her being able to understand it, to a subtle mounting panic-- perhaps a bit too quickly overcome by her curiosity.

"You are not allowed to be down here!" she shouted as she finally passed through into the room, convinced that some of the locals were probably playing a trick on her. But there was no response this time, as Cecelia began to shine the flash-light around and seen more than she might have ever hoped to expect.

Elaborate murals adorned the walls, though they reminded her more of something ancient Aegean than of Roman design. She had seen something of similar effect in pictures, pictures that were taken of a civilization that had been virtually wiped off the face of the earth... yet again, a volcano was the suspected culprit. The people of the isle of Santorini had left behind similar designs, some of which modern scholars suspected might have been the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis.

Archeological evidence seems to indicate that the people that lived there had managed to escape, due primarily to the absence of human remains and various weaponry that must have been taken with them. But the murals remained intact as they were here, and this was something of an import that could only be speculate upon without further study.

Still, this seemed to tantalize Cecelia's imagination. Even that there were only those vague visible tracings and clearer areas that she could see without removing the layers of ancient mud-- she was certain that this place had not been discovered by any of the modern academia.

She stopped as she neared the northern most edge of a the eastern wall, and the next wall brought a deeper mystery as her brow furrowed. Unalike the other walls, this north wall was as if it had already been cleared and the mud cleaned away. Moving along, her flashlight uncovering the monolithic proportions of human-ilk representations. Giants that were well over fifteen feet in height, their flesh tones dark and definitely humanesque while the heads more reticent of Egyptian cosmogonies.

She stopped at the center of the wall as there was depicted a nude woman far larger than the rest. In her hands, cradled near her womb and over her sex was a terrific ball of light.

"Astarte," the name trickled from her lips as she stared in awe at the immense mosaic inset within the wall.

"Lo, beware the Queen of Heaven"...

It was strange that the clip of verse from the Biblical book of Isaiah would come to mind, in as Cecelia had long ago abandoned her mother's religion; from an agnostic to an atheist within a matter of a few short years at college. Cecelia had never been a very good Catholic, and the Biblical view towards women always a bit of a rub to her even when she was a child. Yet, as soon as she had seen the depiction of her there, that verse sprung out from the fog of her memories as it had always left her curious as to who he was talking about. It was only as she was older that she discovered the gods and goddesses of ancient Babylon.

Why were they here? The explanation seemed simple enough, in that the Romans were hardly beyond adopting foreign god and in the latter years, there were literally dozens of small mystery cults to Dionysus, Demeter, Mithras-- among others. Astarte would have been especially appealing to them, Cecelia figured. She turned back into the room, her imagination now fresh with some small bit of gleamed knowledge. Of course, she would have hardly have put anything forth more than the find revealed itself in her field notes. She was still a few years away from her doctorate, and such speculations often were met with ridicule-- in the absence of evidence and sound data. Still, there was a small smirk as she considered that this was likely once a secret temple. It staggered the mind to consider what may have went on here, though hardly accepting anything more supernatural than what rites and rituals may have been performed here. There would have likely been priests and priestesses, temple prostitutes; orgies were hardly out the question... there may have likely been sacrifices, though not human sacrifices. The absence of an altar was somewhat discouraging, but there was also more to be seen. Not just along the walls, but there was a slender hall that led out towards the sea.

Cecelia gave herself time to breathe, as her light played against the anterior walls of this chamber, where only vague outlines and some few small parts of the design beneath had bled through. She knew that the small corridor likely led toward some inner chamber or sacred sanctum, for which only a blessed few could pass beyond a curtained veil. It was not without some reluctance that she ventured nearer towards it. She may have been somewhat overwhelmed by all of this, but she had not forgotten about the curious laughter and the terrifying voice that had spoke to her. She accused herself of being overly imaginative, that she such uneasiness was silly. At worst, some of the modern inhabitants of the city had found their way down here and had heard her coming, thinking to play a bit of their own bit of deviltry upon her.

Cecelia had made only a few steps closer before she was stopped, stock-still and seemingly temporarily paralyzed by the pale and near spectral face of a woman with long dark hair that fell over her shoulders and to her side. She was wearing a strange costume, a diadem nestled in her hair and veils attached to the main fixture of what had to be a costume. A dual fold scarlet brassier was draped loosely and low over her shoulders, which spilled down between her breasts and formed a short dress like wrap over her hips. The woman wore few adornements, save the silver chain that was bound around her hips and waist. On her legs, a wrapped coil of leather twine and short suede like boots upon her feet. On each finger was a silver and inornate ring of simple wrap design, each holding a different sort of stone.

"Hello," Cecelia finally gathered her wits, and stood with some more firm resolve as the woman neither moved nor spoke. "You are not supposed to be down here you know."

The woman's lips curled upward slightly at that as her head lowered, but her eyes remained locked upon Cecelia's.

"You could get in trouble with the local authorities for"... Cecelia's voice cut off close as the woman began to move in slow methodic sort of steps towards her. It was near as she suspected she might seducing Cecelia, or trying to get her to back away. Cecelia stood her ground, a brief flash of irritation as the woman now stood uncomfortably close.

'In some cultures, it is an insult to stand so far away when conversing,' she reminded herself as the woman's head cocked slightly, impossibly deep and dark eyes staring down upon her like still blue pools that had suddenly begun to ripple in the reflection of Cecelia's light... that fell away from her hand and down, lost upon the subterranean floor as Cecelia's screams were absorbed with the dark and hollow space, cessating to a dim whisper before trailing off altogether.

It was a few hours before the batteries of her flashlight finally dulled and then failed, as a small red pool began to ebb into the dimming peripheries of it's fading light before it went out.

Madgyn (Leviathan, Mercury & CEL)

2- Leviathan

She was called the Keep...

Sienna eyes, from which an
indistinct pupil honed blackness
only unto its core, seemingly
undisturbed from the soft redness
that affected her more outside of
the eye than within. Attraction,
accrue in mysteries for what may
have been more simple to the
naked eye...

"One of the Fire Peoples," she said
sitting across from him, beneath
the bridge as they day wore into night.
There were others there, though Manny
could remember faces, their names
were a mixed hodge-podge
of indiscernible street titles

"Excuse me?" Manny had let his
mind become too consumed in the
euphoria, staring down toward the
slow moving water as if he had
expected to see or find something
there with those depths-- the river
a golden dark, bordered by shallows
of coppery color.

"You look Algonquin," the Keep sighed
before moving over into the old man's
coat, and pulling out a cigarette. The
old man, who was called Papa Lou
(Manny assured that it was short
for something other, though its root
or meaning lost within their own
dichotomy, apart from which the rest
of the world for which proper names
had become basically meaningless--
often to their owner as well)

She lit it from the inside of an
inexpensive Catholic candle,
which the Keep had always called
Voodoo candles...

"In America, that seems as likely good
a guess as any to her," Manny closed his eyes,
his arms propped over his knees as he stared
at her throat and the soft mechanisms at play
there as stared back towards his face.

"So what did you mean before
about where you are from?"

"It's under-water," Manny let his
eyes raise to meet hers keenly.

"Like Atlantis?" She grinned.

"Something like that, I suppose."

"Don't mind her," another of the group
spoke, a young man with light fleshy skin,
which under other conditions may have
resorted to jowls. Manny had always played
a sort of game with other peoples' faces, to
change the dynamics of their conditions and
from whence they had come-- superimposing
another image and mask from a life that had
never been lived...

He was not sure if there were actual
decisions in one's life, save the conditions
under which they lived. Manny didn't recall
what the Keep had called him, but he had
struck Manny already as singularly
self-absorbed. A fair weather friend, on
a good day; it wasn't that he might willingly,
nor wantingly, do someone wrong,
as that to what ends and interest it
may serve his own affair. He gave nothing
without some hint of likely return

To pluck it all apart into the whys
would have been pointless.

A spoilt air and a dingy wooden crown
from which the Jack O'Green may pounce
unkindly or to cast the wheel from which
fortune reaps and sows o'er the uncunning ground

He was fair featured, Manny had decided.
He was soft and unused to any form of violence
that he may be put upon to rely on his wits and
an element of bartering with his enemies.

There were darker potentialities within him,
watered down by a general sense of uprightedness
for which goodness played little sway
as perceived goodness may hold some promise

..."She is one of those new age nut-jobs."

"I see," Manny closed his eyes and seen
distinct images of the Tarot Hierophant.
He had not seen a deck in years, abandoning
the art as something darker than most
practitioners may have reckoned... Still,
something alike the faces of old and familiar
friends, he could remember them distinctly.

"You don't believe in any of that horse-shit now, do ya?"

"Screw you, Poot. I am so tired of your shit."
Keep scoffed, and then took another drag from
the cigarette as she stared towards him as if
daring him to say another word.

Idolatry was the last that was around
that night, and the least to make sense.
Perhaps a tad overly nervous, what one
might call twitchy-- pretty and seemingly
set just apart enough from the others that
she didn't have to notice them unless she
chose-- and she wasn't poor

"Are you going to answer me?

"I didn't feel the need," Manny didn't
feel like talking, as one question would
inevitably lead to the next...

He had a vague uncomfortable
feeling that there was something,
or someone, missing in this
social equation-- something more
important than all of the rest.

"Friendly bastard, ya aren't."
Poot turned and followed Manny's
eye towards the near sickly slender
woman-- Poot turning back
and spinning his finger near his temple

"So, what brings you around?"
Keep chimed back in, for which Manny
merely shrugged.

"Way down upon the ocean,
where I wanna be-- she may be"...

The Keep watched as Manny closed
his eyes and was asleep within a mere
matter of moments.

The radio continued to play.

3- Mercury

Angelino "Gino" Frost watched on quietly
as she undressed, a small and tight filtered
blunt cigar dangling between his teeth
as he noted the scars and bruises along
her back, buried within a lattice-work
of tattoos and a burnt name branded
against the back of her thigh

"Alright if I smoke this first?" she laid
across him, her eye set upon the marijuana
filled cigar as he nodded his head slowly.
She reached up, hesitantly at first.

It was the last lingering vestige of an
ill-spent youth, as she had once been
known as Hell-Cat and rode around
with a wild pack of bikers that were
kinda of the opinion that they owned her

She didn't get the name Hell-Cat for nothing.

Katerina Farcosi was hardly so demure
as the history implied, though time had
caught up to her somewhat and she
had settled uneasily into the area.

The rumor mill at the station
had it that Gino had tamed her,
which may have been expected
of a woman who was seeing a cop--
when Gino had been a cop

Truth was, even if he has stayed being
a cop, there would have been little interest
in trying to teach Cat any new tricks.
Gino watched her as she dug the Zippo
out from the front pocket of his slacks
and lit the end of the blunt.

"So, what are you going to do now?"
she asked, turning and rolling off of
him and onto her back on the bed.

"Become a gigglo," he smirked as
she cackled loudly at that. There
was very little dainty about Cat,
and her laughter fit her style.

"Yeah well, I'll pay you for the bud--
the other I would probably want my money back."

"No refunds," Gino said as he rolled
up from the bed and moved towards
the large third floor window.

"You alright?" she asked
on a more serious note.

"Never been there,
but they tell me it's nice."

"Yeah well, if you're going to jump,
use one of your other girlfriend's window."
Cat sat up and pulled the blankets
out from underneath her.

"I made tighter jumps than this
in Airborne school sweetheart,
wouldn't even likely break a nail
on this hop."

"Look, you got something coming in
and I may not pay well, but you don't
piss me off-- all the time--
and that is kind of a rarity
with the male species."

"You're interrupting my midlife crisis."

"How long you figure that will take?"

"I still have my hand-cuffs."

"It's over already then, eh?"
She smirked as he shrugged before
turning around to face her.

"You in the mood?"

"Not really."

"Me neither," he said before moving
towards the fridge to grab a beer.

"You could have informed me of this
before I got undressed," she shouted
in towards the kitchenette
as he downed a beer.

"It's only a hundred thousand degrees
outside. I am pretty sure you will survive."

"Air-conditioning!-- I have air conditioning!"
she said, her aggravation not real so much as
this was generally her demeanor.

"Don't get too dressed,
I mean like... It's not like I need
fricking Viagra here or some shit
like that."

"Too late," she said as she moved
past him and grabbed the corn chips
from the top of the fridge.

"There's like that glass kitchen table
there and I"...

"My baby eats there," Cat crinkled
up her nose and shook her head.

"Funny story, I was like not horny when
I knew I was going to get some, but now I
am like... feeling all, ya know... you r'member."
He teased as he followed her into
the living-room area of her apartment.

"That kind of line work on your
other girlfriends?" she smirked as he
fell in beside her on the couch.

"No Baby, I saved that one just fer you."

"You lie."

"No, actually I'm not. But
mostly on account that it's
kind of a rare thing for me
to turn it down I suspect.
Still, isn't it the
thought that counts?"

"Uh, if I only had a dollar,"
she smirked as he laughed
hard at that.
A little too hard actually.

Rolling away from her,
he reached and grabbed
the remote from the end
table... for only a moment
watching the television
before she was in his face.

"You don't get to change
your mind this time," she
straddled over his lap and
began to kiss at his cheek
before her hands moved
to caress at the back of his neck

He closed his eyes and laid his head
back against the couch as her lips
moved down over his chest.

4- Coarse Elements of Limbo

She watched from overhead,
the heels of her boots
clicking against the slate
roof of the Cathedral

It would be simple enough
to kill him from here, though
it lacked a certain...
quality of pain

"Bring out your dead!"
It was only a momentary
distraction as she turned
to see the small cart piled
over with freshly deceased
and bloated corpses

The cart & driver were an
anathema, something
out of sync with
the rest of this modern city

It was only then that she
realized she had followed
him too long, and too far
into his own world

From the corner of the alleyway,
he peered around the corner,
a smirk appearing on his face as
he watched he leave back the
way she had come.

Peace,
Po

Madgyn (Open)

1- Microcosm

"All I want is a Tennessee bottle,
all I need is an Arkansas bride
A place where all I can see
is the Ozark Mountain sunrise...
and 500 miles to hide my lies"

He had stepped out and walked away from
Carlysle without looking back, without any clear
sense of where he was headed until his
mind had found this small nest of shadows
that had begun to come out from beneath
the bridge-- the song sounding tintingly from
the old small alarm clock radio as the young man
that lived there stripped naked before wading out
into the cold water...

He reminded him of Li'l Sam--
sent to be hidden among those
other savages and vermin
of Carlysle; perhaps fortunate
only that he had met the criteria
for admission into the research

Craven for touch, sound-- stimulation
of any sense that he had left that would
not deny him access to the world around
him... pan-sexuality... Mama's little
defect...

Li'l Sam fed his heart to the spoils
after she had died, the son of another man
and his pretty mother's knee-jerk reaction
to never love a poor man again.

The patron usurper, a man of the city
and means that spared him no moment,
save that Li'l Sam was a fair more complicated
mechanism than he would ever suspect.
Upon the day that he discovered Li'l Sam
had become the somewhat lesser willing,
secret, companion of his more powerful cousin...

Carlysle did very little by the way
of helping him muddle through--
marked for derision, as well as put
upon to surrender himself to those
attentions skimmed of darker hours
and secret places

There was even a point that Manny
had begun to wonder if ol' Doc Carlysle
was fucking him as well, as those attentions
that he left obvious may have been
appropriate for a younger boy

It made Manny uncomfortable to
think it may have been like that;
that those times that he had sat
the boy up on his lap might have
been anything other than what it
seemed... Manny alway felt that
he had lived too long

Dreaming too near the edge of the world...

"So, what part of Hell are you from?"
A tall, older strawberry blond woman
stood over him, wearing a colorful
weave jacket and a socking cap--
wearing a sort of thinness
prevalent to the streets, it
was her eyes set in hard, though
not wholly unattractive features--
taut and tanned, her teeth turned
and stained with tobacco, among
other things... She considered it a
moment before handing him the
joint she was smoking

It was then that the flood-gate
of memories, inundate by the
river and November rains were
broken-- the lowland reservation
had become like a lake bed

Grandma Stillwater had told him
that their family had taken the name
of the town that had been built in the
place where their people had once lived

Outside their backyard of the trailer-house
was a cemetery and church built by the old
Catholic missionaries that had come to explore
an unsettled and wild new place, within the
new world...

Manny's only recollection of this
mostly came second-hand from her.
He likely had a hundred others of those
stories she would tell, of how her
father was near as anxious as the whites
for change, though she doubted the
changes that came were the same
that he may have wished

"Memorae, memoria, memory"
a softer and unemotional voice
struck like the chime of a clock
as Dr. Nathan Carlysle's face clouded
over, as if submerged under that
muddy water deluge... Of course,
he had not been there when the
North Fork Dam broke

"What the soul remembers,
what the heart remembers,
and what the mind remembers"

"Somewhere that no longer exists."

Peace
Po

Madgyn

I: The Kiss of the Winter Witch

Prelude:

Dreaming too near the edge of the world...

Closing her childish wish-books
when the devils begin to play--
obdurate cruelties
of a restless heart

Like a curse that may again
put me to wonder
of the soul’s desire
for this world

And so to travel into
and through, those myriad
self-images and
one more loveless seasonal
a mask of change of somewhen
where a smile comes like twilight

I had left her there,
abandon to dreaming
underneath a bodily moon
of such simple tides;
waxing and wanning
nearer and, again, far away,
her body some another
carnal instrument,
overcome by frenzy
of those darkly fantastique
dreams and what other abominations
become lovers in her dreams

Dreaming too near the edge of the world...

The glisten rose. as the body
acts without conscience, flood
o'er with fevers and frights
that clench her heart
in an angelic fist of judgment

Her breasts heaved and rose
as she could feel another birth pang
a painful blossom of death
torn and swollen open inside,
her hands clawed against the
damp and hot crumpled sheets
of an infernal bed

For there could be no goodness
that would ever want her, covering
herself over in a black-bile stench, as if
to hide her own scent in the world's filth

Manny Stillwinds held her tightly,
assured that it could be nothing more
than another one of her bad dreams.
It wasn't long until she went still,
collapsing in to his arms

... When he woke few hours later,
she was cold.

Peace,
Po