Men with white hair
men with dark suits
men with white roses with stems
six to eight feet long.
Each bundle of flowers
looks like a body
carried with reverence,
up the steep hill.
Someone,
somewhere in the procession drops a pen.
Things step, and then start again.
A whitehaired man in a suit
throws us one —
when it hits the grass,
the head comes off.
She picks it up
and it’s hard and heavy
like porcelain,
but smooth like glass,
but warm like plastic.
The woman is getting
her daughter from a train station;
she dreamt in her sleep,
and is upset
because she has to go home.
“Always at the pen I am awakened,” she weeps.
“Always at the pen.”
That is when I realize
I am holding one —
the moment it falls.
Always at the pen
DeathWatch No. 94 – We Monsters Are Well-Educated, You Know
This is Issue #94 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
“Where are your soldiers?” the officer asked. He sat across from Jules and Kieron, with a small sheaf of papers. He took notes in a scrawl indecipherable scrawl, and somewhere a clock was ticking, counting out the seconds.
Jules sat blankly. Her face was pale, and her heart thundered in her chest. She looked around, frowning now and then, trying to see past the bright light over the table that cast the rest of the room into shadow. She wondered if anyone aboard the Jacob knew they were gone yet. Her comms unit had fallen off when she and Kieron were first blown out the back of the ship. For all the crew knew, she and Kieron had fallen to their deaths — along with the cadet who had been in charge of watching the fuel tank pressure.
She wondered if the boy had died instantly, or fallen, knowing the whole while he wasn’t going to be saved.
She didn’t pay a whit of attention to the man asking questions.
Kieron sat in chains next to her, silent, occasionally glancing at her as though to judge what she was doing so he could anticipate what he should do next.
“When are the rest of your soldiers planning their attack?” the officer asked, mild, polite even.
She stared at her hands, where they were shackled to the table, and she carefully pressed each fingertip to the woodgrain, counting her breaths, biding her time.
Kieron didn’t answer, the same way Jules didn’t, looking mostly at his hands, feeling stressed, but not otherwise bothered.
“How do your systems work in the storm? How did you know where our ships were?” the officer asked, leaning into her field of vision.
Jules said nothing, and closed her eyes.
Kieron waited, staying quite still.
“You will give me answers, or I cannot help you,” the officer told her.
Jules smiled faintly, but opened her eyes again and said nothing.
“Is that it, then?” the officer said. “I am not here to trick you. Perhaps you will at least give me your name, rank, number, yes?”
“O’Malley,” Jules said dully. “Julianna Vernon. Commander. JVO27878446.”
“Brody,” Kieron said, looking at Jules. “Kieron Matthias. Cadet. KMB29035768.”
But the officer wasn’t even looking at Kieron. He was studying Jules, some unreadable expression on his face. He got up and moved to unlock Kieron’s shackles, and had guards get him up and walk him out of the room. Lowly, he spoke to his men in Ilonan, and they moved to drag Kieron away.
“Wait–” Kieron began. “Wait a minute, wait, WAIT!” he shouted. “No, you have t–” and then he was gone, and his shouting was muffled, and Jules heard him thrown into the room next to the one in which she was still sitting.
“He’s just a cadet,” Jules said irritably, rolling her eyes. “He’s not going to–”
The officer behaved as though she hadn’t spoken at all, sat down across from Jules and said, “Commander.” Instead, of continuing, he looked through his file, and made more notes.
Jules cocked her head to the side, frowning slightly. She eyed the pins and decorations on the man’s uniform and said, “…Captain? Do I have that right?”
“Yes. This is my ship,” he said, folding his hands in front of him on the table. “Now that we have that out of the way–”
Another soldier came in, speaking quickly, handing over another small sheaf of papers. The Captain took them and frowned, then looked over at Jules, clenching his jaw, looking furious. “You aren’t from the same ship as your companion.”
Jules looked almost smug. “Never said I w–”
“SILENCE,” the Captain said, and his tone was hatred and fury. He stood, towering over her. “You will answer my questions, but you will otherwise hold your tongue in my presence.”
Jules’s brows went up. She smiled, sweet-as-can-be. The fact that the Captain was so riled likely meant he wouldn’t be able to conduct an interview with any real finesse, and that suited her just fine — what she didn’t know, and that bothered her more than a little, was what got him so pissed.
“You’re from the Maxima,” he growled.
Her eyebrows went up, at that. “I’m from the Jacob–” It burned her heart to lie, but she knew in an instant just why the Captain was so angry. Visions of the blackened farmland swam in front of her. Abe’s fury and grief were all-consuming. He had nothing left in his heart except hatred, and the horror of it welled up in the back of Julianna’s throat.
“No. You’re the Quartermaster of the Maxima, under Captain Abramov. You’re from the ship that burned Viridian Valley,” he said, clenching his fists. “So you’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know.”
This is how it’s going to be then, isn’t it? she thought. Well, fine, then. This time, I’ll get at least one of you. At least one of you will go down with me. Jules’s expression went blank, and she relaxed her body, saying, “Delo vashe, skrimsli.”
“Oh, you speak Kriegic do you? And you taunt me with it? I can speak your vulgar tongue,” the man said, his lip curling in a disgusted sneer. “And I can also speak Kriegic. We monsters are well-educated, you know. Tell me what I want to know, or you’ll get my worst, Commander, mark my words.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes “That supposed to scare me?”
The Captain stood back up, and walked over to the wall adjoining her room to the next. The room where they’d taken Kieron. He knocked twice on the wall, and turned to look at Jules.
She stared at him, and the wall behind him, clenching and unclenching her fists, and then opened her mouth to say something else when suddenly there was a high, awful wailing bleat. Kieron’s voice.
A thunderous shock hit Jules; her heart skipped a beat. “No,” she said, her mouth dry. “No, you — don’t touch him, he– he’s not… he didn’t. He was on the Jacob. They came and stopped us. They shot the Maxima down.”
“Answer my questions,” the Captain said.
“Yebat sebya!” Jules cried, gritting her teeth. “He’s innocent.”
“He’s a soldier. Your soldier. Give me what I want, Commander, or I will carve your name and your failures into his skin until he comes apart at the seams,” the Captain told her quietly.
Breathing heavily, Jules weighed the options, and Kieron’s life came up on the light side of the scale. There were too many people on board the Jacob to risk giving any other information. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He signed up for it,” Jules said, gritting her teeth. The chains at her wrists rattled as her hands shook. She clenched them into fists, trying to calm her heart.
The Captain knocked twice, again, and after a moment, the wailing cry picked up again, and then grew half-strangled. Kieron, again. The voice was unmistakable. “Please. Please, no, don’t — NO!”
* * *
Posted in Deathwatch, Fiction, Serial
Tagged death, deathwatch, fiction, Jet, Kieron, serial, writing
Leave a comment
All The Colors
Beyond winters chill
there lies a hopeful font of blood,
blue flies,
green flies,
black waters.
Everyone comes up short,
and everyone is a wet-nosed nudge away
from either soothed
or screaming.
There is a film of red over her eyes,
a flood of crimson,
a haze of anger
and well-meaning love.
All the colors of bruises
are hers to have.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged abuse, love, mental illness, poem, poems, poetry, self esteem, self hate, writing
Leave a comment
DeathWatch No. 93 – Consume Me
This is Issue #93 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
Jet lay in silk sheets, breathing in the scent of feverdreams. Beneath him, the Prince of Ilona writhed, but when Jet moved to pull away, Immanis’s arms closed around him, sliding a bloody streak over his shoulder. The kiss deepened, and Jet uttered a low cry against his prince’s mouth, pressing, shifting, feeling the roar of the inferno between them.
He fought, unable to give in to the fire, and they rolled and shifted and twisted on the bed, tangling in a sweatslick wrestle that Jet could feel building a tightness low in his belly. Immanis stretched in his arms, leaning into him, and when Jet could feel the friction of skin on skin growing ever more insistent, he pressed even closer, needing something he dared not name.
“My Lord, my Immanis,” Jet whispered, breathless and shaking. He lifted himself away, but only enough to look his Prince in the eyes.
The gaze was met with dark hunger, half-demanding, half-offering. “My Guardian, my Jet,” Immanis returned, leaning up to put his mouth against Jet’s once more. “Consume me,” he said. “Burn me. Save me.”
The time for turning away had come and gone; Jet nodded, no longer willing to hesitate. He laid himself against Immanis, hands and mouth and body seeking the answers to questions he did not fully comprehend, but had to ask.
Immanis received his searching, his longing, and surrendered to them both.
They were a hungry knot of skin-on-skin, mouth-to-mouth sensation when someone knocked on the door, and began to open it.
Secta stepped in, already speaking. “Lord, please forgive the interruption, but–” He froze, his eyes widening as he looked to his prince and his guardian in the bed. “Majesty!” Secta squeaked, obviously startled.
Immanis paused, but there was neither shame, nor fury in his gaze. He turned, looking to the door, as though interruptions were of little consequence. “Secta,” He said, his expression unreadable.
“You’re… well?” Secta’s voice cracked again, and the groom blushed, looking to Jet, and then back again.
Jet held quite still, his heart thundering, dizzying need whorling with sparks behind his eyes.
“I am now,” Immanis declared, slowly growing impatient. “Did you have a message?”
Remembering himself, Secta nodded. He looked to Jet, awed, and backed out of the way. “I… am… so sorry to have disturbed you. The, ah… the hall is ready, and your guests will arrive soon. I knew the Guardian wanted to get there before them.”
Finding his voice, Jet murmured “Thank you, Secta,” and nodded in dismissal.
Secta looked at Immanis, and then Jet, and he nodded in return, then backed out, moving to shut the door, his expression still shocked.
Even before Secta left the room, Immanis cupped Jet’s cheek in one warm hand and leaned up to kiss his mouth without hesitation. He pulled back, smiling faintly, and said, “This is twice now, you have saved my life. What will I owe you?”
“Nothing,” Jet said, “You have saved my life already, Immanis,” he promised, and then leaned in to kiss him once more before detangling to leave the bed, albeit reluctantly, and re-dress. He looked at himself in the mirror while adjusting his shroud, and touched his bitten lips, feeling the blush rise in his skin. To combat the feeling, to wash it away, he grimaced dramatically and rolled his eyes as he examined the blood and smeared lines around his mouth and chin. He sighed. Fixing the facepaint was going to be a pain in the ass.
* * *
Pleasantly warmed on cool wine, freshly washed and dressed, Acer Plaga wandered about the hallways of the moon wing until he’d gotten himself nearly lost. The magnitude of the palace itself was staggering. Ilona truly was the richest of the Eastlands. He kept walking in circles, looking to get to the feasting hall, when he finally stumbled upon a veiled palace girl.
“You–” he called to her. “I was told there would be feasting in my honor,” he chuckled, looking amused with himself. As he reached her, he looked her over and made no secret he found her pleasing. She was precisely of the right sort to rid himself of his jealousy for Lucida. He had reached too high in that imagining; the rumors of the entire city seemed to be that the princess would wed the Guardian. “Perhaps you shall bring me luck, as I am stunned by the beauty of this great place, and cannot find my way.”
“Lord Plaga, yes, there is to be a great feast, with the Prince himself,” the girl said, bowing her head.
“You know me? The Prince is well? I had heard he was quite ill,” Plaga said, narrowing his eyes and watching the girl shrewdly. He liked the look of her, but did not want to be too captivated by her dark eyes and shyly smiling mouth.
“How could I not? Your family is of legend, and you are the leader who will help unite all people within the light of the Luminora, yes? You will join with the brilliance that is our Prince, and you will see for yourself, when you come to the feast,” the girl said, smiling almost mischievously. “Do you wish an escort, my Lord?”
“I do,” Plaga murmured, offering out his arm. “Will you show me?”
Blushing, the girl nodded, and took Plaga from the Moon wing to the main halls of the palace, and led him toward the feasting room. “There will also be music. Dancing. Contests of skill. War games,” she offered.
“Which of these things sound like the most fun?” he wondered of her.
“I like dancing,” the girl said, blushing, after a moment. “And contests.”
“Then I will want to see you near me, when it is time for dancing, hmm?” Acer murmured, catching up her hand and kissing the tips of her fingers.
“Your Lordship is too kind,” the girl said, smiling giddily. “I will do my best; if I am ordered to serve elsewhere, I–”
“Ah, but you are to be my good luck charm, my pretty-eyed doe. I will not let them order you to serve elsewhere,” Acer Plaga declared. “For you are a beauty even among beauties, and I tell you I aim to put my hands on the richness of Ilona that is offered me, and the Guardian of Ilona himself has declared I should be pleased.”
“Truly, Lord, you are a venerable man, and I will do my utmost to please you,” the girl said, casting down her eyes, hiding her own shrewd smirk behind her veil.
“What is your name?” he asked, reaching to touch her chin, to make her look up at him.
She turned her face up to him, blinked her pretty doe eyes and said, “Gemma.”
* * *
Databases bleed information (of course)
It’s a Sisters Of Mercy night
and you know what that means:
get on your knees,
bow your head and receive.
Hear the laughter
down the hall,
the distant drums,
the rise and fall
of a thousand lifetimes of solace,
a thousand lifetimes of tears,
a thousand lifetimes of agonies,
a thousand lifetimes of fear?
It’s a Sisters of Mercy night
and you know what that means:
get on your knees,
bow your head, and receive.
Do you dare to remember
the cold in December,
the raven’s wings rattling,
the blood on the stairs,
the tiles on the rooftop,
the tooth-studded doorstop,
crosses cut in your skin,
and the lock of her hair?
It’s a Sisters of Mercy night
and you know what that means:
get on your knees,
bow your head, and receive.
The Sisters of Mercy come tonight
and you know what that means:
get on your knees,
bow your head; be redeemed.
Posted in Poetry, Songwriting
Tagged for Caroline, Leonard Cohen, memories, music, poem, poems, sisters of mercy, song, songs, songwriting, writing
Leave a comment