For references.

I just started writing a mystery story and I am calling it "The Man Under the Stairs."

It is about an elderly woman who has to find a missing manuscript.

I AM NOW ON AMAZON.COM!!

My self-published book is now on amazon.com.

BUY IT NOW!!!

Look under my name.

I need to get crackin' on my fiction books, my scripts, and new songs *sigh.*

For references.

I was rejected by "Pure Francis" two days ago.

I sent one story submission to "Flash Fiction Online."

Lichenberg, Germany, April 1978.

It was cold. I stood on the doorstep of
my house, and looked at the blue car
sitting in the driveway. It has not been
running for years-my Uncle Samuel
said he would fix it later, and never got
around to it.

I don’t know why I trusted him with it.
He’s an American, aren’t Americans supposed
to be efficient with cars? I never knew about
about that part.

My fridge is getting low on cold foods.
The cows are in the barn, mooing for attention.

Winter comes in six short months. I hurry down
the steps and wonder why I am hurrying.

The Sky Is Full.

The sky is full of corn flower clouds.
The wind moans
like a guest-beating
at the back door of
the summer house.

No more guests for the week. They have
all gone home due to the power outage
from the storm,
that rose from the west
and beat against the windows

like invisible hands.

Sometimes, things seem to change.
Other times, the wind stops blowing.

Note to self.

Note to self: Submissions for the "Thirty-First Bird Review" starts on June 1st.

I have five poems ready.

Stars and a Pendulum.

I fling myself to the stars.
In the night, the stars shine down.
The universe goes around and around like
a pendulum-

my mind is in constant rotation.
Darkness enters my heart. I am nothing,
compared to the vastness of space
that is cold as my ego.

I am an iceberg.

I crash against the shore of a stormy sea.
I am a bird. I fly through the air and land
on a lone island, inhabited by men named
Darwin and Washington.

This is my story. I retell it to old men in
coffee shops and bookstores.

The Night wears down.

I am distant.

New Story.

I finished writing my new story entitled "We Are the Furries." I finished the first draft, anyway, about a werewolf who lives with another werewolf who turns back into a human. I am probably going to turn it into a novel after I finish "The Horn of Neverwhen."

A Stroke of Genius.

When I was two, the letters "B" and "L"
struck in my mind like a flash of lightning-
some say it was a strike of genius, my professor
says it’s bullshit.

I don’t really understand bullshit. Or why people
use it as an excuse when they don’t understand
how to do the right thing-the right thing is never
written in any books; it is stamped on your knee cap
like a badge of courage, or
wrapped inside your heart. It’s something you can’t see.

Some people say I don’t know anything. I think they
are right. How could a two year old know something
a grown up should know, but doesn’t?
How could
a seventeen year old? How could, how could-

How could the dash in a sentence have so many rules?
All the rules mean shit when you’re by yourself. All bets
are off.

I don’t believe in bullshit. There’s simply too much drama
attached to it.

Losing Faith.

He laughs at things that are intelligent.
He thinks the whole world owes him something.
I tell him they don't.
He insists they do-and decides to take it further
by having a baby with a dark-haired woman
with too much lip, whose intelligence is sub-par,
and whose tattoos are jaded, at best; she was
trying to impress him when they first met,
she wanted a husband, she says, not a lover.
She does not have faith in the system.

I, myself, prefer a lover, not a husband.
I prefer long walks on the
beach, talking about sweet sorrows and the
horrible killing of the whales
and the mating of the elephants
in long exhausted Africa, where the Rwandans and
Congolese people are trying to survive on little
or nothing at all.

I prefer making dinner at home to going out.
I prefer movies at the theater to a DVD player.
I prefer a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I’m
going to get it. I’m not loud, or boisterous,
or rude; that’s what men prefer nowadays.
At least that's what I read in an article in The New York Times.

I am a quiet woman in a room full of light and color
and the darkness is prominent. Nothing can be done
about this. No one says anything about anything.

Wonder.

I wonder if Stephanie Meyer thought of Chopin's "Nocturne" when she was thinking of the title for her stories.

Just for references.

I sent five poems to a magazine entitled "Pure Francis."

A Home Divided: a short story.

Sarin, Alabama, 1965.

I was a child nearing thirteen and every day I became weaker and weaker. He said my vital signs were weaker than a little girl’s and I shan’t have much longer to live. This was not the news I was looking for. I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, my legs dangling over it like branches swaying in the wind and all the while my mother wept at the doctor with the big head and the glistening face and the ears that stuck out like a rabbit’s. It was Saturday, and I should have been playing outside with all the other kids but I wasn’t. I didn’t know why I couldn’t, at least not at the time.

Most doctor’s offices were closed on Saturdays and we took the bus ride all the way down to the hospital in Sarin, the one with the giant statues and the garden out front and the lake that shone like mirrors. While my mother and the doctor chattered on and on about my past medical history, I looked at the paintings on the wall and imagined I was somewhere else, maybe in the woods with a friend or fishing with my uncle.

My uncle Seamus had a condition, too. He had a broken hip and recently had to get a wheelchair. I told him he didn’t need one but he didn’t listen and spent his time wheeling around the kitchen in it because the living room is too cluttered with junk. He hired a maid-a black woman with wide breasts-to clean it every Sunday but she was slow and sloppy with her work and he liked to point his cane at her and yell out swear words I wasn’t supposed to hear.

When I heard this I always giggled behind my hands. It was very funny to me to hear an old man swear like that. He thought it was funny, too. My father would not think it was so funny. I did not know where he was. I wished he was with me all the time.

Dr. Smith was not an ugly man. He had a bunch of degrees on the wall and his stethoscope was cold and shone like the moon at night. He kissed my forehead and gave me a red sucker and said I should take it easy, that surgery wouldn’t be necessary. My mother asked me how long I had.

Dr. Smith gave her a long look over my head, like they were sharing some kind of secret, and said he didn’t know. She nodded, relenting. Grabbing my hand, she dragged me back down to the bus, carrying the prescription he wrote to me like a shield, and we climbed aboard and smiled at the bus driver with the scary eyes and bunched-up shirt that showed too much. The bus driver did not speak to us. He never did, but that didn’t stop my mother from trying to be friendly.

"Hello, sir," she said. "I hope you are doing fine. As you can see, my girl’s got cancer, please drive real slow. She gets sick easily."

He didn’t answer.

We sat in the middle of the bus. The seats were too high up for me.

My legs dangled over the side and my mother told me we were going to go to the store to get my medicine, she said it was medicine to make me feel better and the reason I was feeling terrible was because I had something called leukemia. She said it meant I was special in a way that was different from the other kids and that I shouldn’t worry and that God took care of special children like me.

She said I didn’t have to go to school anymore and that she would teach me. I made a face. I liked school especially this boy named Benjamin Thomas Reed, who liked to poke me in the back and said things that were supposed to sound mean but wasn’t. Once he said I was "resilient" and I looked up the word in the dictionary and it was a good word, not a bad one. I asked him where he got the word from and he said from some old man at Kern’s. Kern was the pharmacy downtown.

"What about Father, Mama?" I wanted to know.

Maybe Father could convince Mama that it was okay to go to school.

"Father’s in the army," she answered shortly, and stared out the window at the passing cars and the buildings that didn’t move. She didn’t like to talk about Father’s work. I suppose it made her jealous.

I didn’t know what to say to that. My father should be home with me, not in some stupid army that didn’t know anything about him.

*

Later that evening, after supper, I was tired. My mother took me upstairs and put me to bed and gave me medicine from a spoon. I made a face. "Yuck!" I said, and she scolded me, saying the medicine was given to doctors by God and that it will make me good as new. I said I hoped so. I said I wished I knew how to feel better.

My eyes closed.

I woke to the sound of the television downstairs. I climbed out of bed and ran downstairs to see Uncle Ben watching tv, his belly laughing with the comedian on the set. Our tv was in black and white. I climbed up on his lap and asked him what he was doing here and he said he was helping Mama mow the lawn. I told him the doctor said I had leukemia and he said he was very sorry and he brought Mama a pie. It was sitting on the table in the kitchen.

"I don’t feel like eating right now," I told him.

He patted my back. "There, there, baby," he said soothingly. "May God soothe your soul."

Mama came home from work and Uncle Ben cut the pie and gave me a piece. It was a good pie, with large red cherries full of sugar and preserves and crust that melted like butter in my mouth. I took my medicine again and Bobby Jones came over and we played in the backyard until dusk, when the fireflies turned on their lights to light up the night sky and filled the evening with shadows. They danced away my sorrows.

THE END.

"The Sims 3" comes out in June!

I love that game. It helps me with characterization and story plots.

Statue of David.

In your garden, there is a statue
of David-a spectacular masterpiece,
a refined piece of artwork..

When I come to visit your garden,
I forget all about the flowers,
I forget all about the birds who flock for miles
to visit your bird house; they know it is the best
around, they’ve read all about it.

I marvel at the art of a living god, not the
statue of David,
but the very art of Nature, how it can carve
a single multiple pattern in a green leaf,
how the squirrel seems to know just where
he left his secret stash of nuts from last year.

Such wonders I have gazed upon
in this still morning; I can’t wait
to write them all down.
At tea time, we drink rosemary tea and ate
hors d’voures. A yellow-tailed butterfly lands
on the tea pot, searching for sweet necter of its own.
Far-off, we hear the drone of bees,
who chatter on and on about Michelangelo.
It felt like I could remember what
it felt like

To remember, to forget something
I could not see standing outside of myself,
Staring, blankly staring at the
Front porch, at the back door,
At a spot inside myself I just
Can’t reach.

(Written when I was 22, I believe-I don't have any new stuff yet.)

Visit To California.

The sea lions sun on a warm rock in San Francisco.
I am on Pier 41, leaning over the railing, taking pictures
of the animals, the water, and Alcatraz-the place
that is haunted by too much pigeon shit. It costs one hundred
dollars to take a ferry over. I decline the offer from
a man wearing a black hat.

I can hear the sea lions calling me from where I stand-they
sound like the whirring blade of a ceiling fan.

This is my 49th visit to California. I live in Toledo, Ohio,
twenty minutes away from the turnpike off of
Denny’s farm.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Denny’s horses;
I’m sure they are still there, their tails waving lazily
in the warm wind, their nostrils heaving in and out.
All I own is an ant farm.

My Aunt Mary’s Quilts.

My father got another quilt from his sister, Mary,
today.

She knits quilts day in and day out and sells
them for a small profit at the Summit Mall.
The new one is blue with yellow tassels-
it reminds me of the sunny sky. It reminds me
of daisies and good times with aunts and uncles
at picnics and Christmas dinner.

My aunt Mary is 59 going on 60. She is a skinny
woman with brown hair and glasses and
a quiet demeanor, as if she sees more than
the rest of us, as if she knows more than her brother.
She is making another quilt-it is halfway finished.

One day, she says, she hopes to quilt the moon.

I tell her this is a big dream. She replies that she understands.

Synopsis for "Forge of Magic, Bind of Bone."

Forge of Magic, Bind of Bone.

The Necromancer resorts back to being a more animal-like creature and takes shelter in a wizard's barn.

Torrance Interwell finds out he is a Lightweaver; not many Elves are Lightweavers.

Alira has the ability to see what the Necromancer sees. She does not like it-much.

Nerev is annoyed by his brother’s constant negativity spiral.

Sebastian begins to realize there is no middle ground when it comes to honor and protection.

More war in the Eastern Kingdoms. The winter months are harsh and dangerous & survival is cruel and demanding. Damsel tries to forge closer relationships w/ the dragons and is having little success; dragons are warm-blooded creatures and hate the cold.

King Herod realizes the entire castle was put under a spell by the Necromancer-by accident. He treks to the Tower of High Sorcery to reverse the spell.

Poetry Update.

I have not written any new poems because I am working on both my novels:

"Horn of Neverwhen."

"Forge of Magic, Bind of Bone." (sequel to "Wizard's Alchemy," which I sent to Baen Books.)

Writing novels makes me a bit tired-however, I did send out a few songs to Roadrunner Records, and I am sending out some country songs to a different music company.

He said, I don’t.

He said, I don’t have time for you.
The wind said, We don’t want you to be witty.
I asked him what he wanted.
He said he wanted a public space.
The sky is large with the hugeness of space.
Tears smack in the dirt.
Gardens are growing. In Jackson, Tennessee,
I see you wandering in your backyard,
holding a trowel, digging in the dirt.
You look like you’re upset.
A deer peeks in through the trees,
its eyes round and large like the moon.
He said I wished you would write poetry.
I replied that I could.
He didn’t believe me. Asked to see some proof.
I showed him the garden; my trowel;
and the doe sitting like a statue in the trees.
He said that wasn’t enough.
I told him to move,
this was not the right lesson
on flowers.
I said I liked daisies.

i am not a genius.

I am not a genius-the professor claims-scribbling the words
on the chalkboard in the classroom,
students filing in and taking their seats. One student brings him
an orange instead of an apple,
and he eats it while sitting in his swiveling chair, spewing shit
about the temperature in Great Britain or Canada.
*
I only listen half-heartedly. I scribble other words in
my notebook-words like "molasses," "airplane," and "brigade,"
words that sound out of tune and not quite right.
It’s almost time to go. We write a paper on thermodynamics.
I pick up my books, and we gather in
the hallway like moths gather around a flame,
hoping for the warmth of another celestial body.

Just for references...

I sent a submission to "ugly cousin" today. Four poems.

Unrequited Bitterness.

The only movies you have are the ones in your head.
The bodies of mothballs litter the floor. My mother trips
over one of them on her way outside-there is no foolishness, only things
that are wrought, discovering the shadows that pinpoint each
star. In the sky, the pigeons flock, clouds move gently
toward broken meadows.

I have called myself out on a lot of things. Like licorice and
broken game systems. I didn’t mean the things I said,
the words were something I said out of anger. Bitter loneliness
flocks the island. I trip on my own two feet on the way
up the stairs. Love is in the air but I don’t feel it.

On Walden.

I think Henry David Thoreau only went to live in the woods (1845 I believe), because he lacked communication skills and was considered an outcast among his friends and family; he probably suffered from bouts of depression and malnutrition.    Usually people who write that much are considered outcasts and people are not very friendly towards them because they are educated and talk like a book.  It happens to the best of us.  I'm sure he fought a lot with his parents when he was a child-or he was rather obedient and got sick of it.  I sure would have.  Being obedient to parents who only care when they feel like it is not really the way to go.

Sent out another submission.

I sent out four more poems to "Rattle" magazine.  Instead of listing publishing credits, I sent them without it.  Maybe that is more professional.  We'll see.

On Pride and Prejudice.

I'm reading Pride and Prejudice.

I've never read such drivel in my life.

Emotional Rollercoaster.

you leave me tethered, entwined in a spiral.
I shake your hand-
you say that the night is cold.

I wake in my bedroom, now.

I am alone, sleeping next to a cold pillow.
The days and nights are burning
with the putrid smell of rain,
my hand moves in front of my face,
the dog awakens next door.
She said, The cornflowers are growing!

To make conversation.
I agree halfheartedly, but I am not
convinced.

That flesh is flesh, and words are words.

As Much As I Love You.

As much as I love you, I have let you go.
The birds sing in roses and gardens.
The sliver of moon brushes across a midnight
sky.
I see you once every seventy years.
Your tears fall softly down your face.

As much as I love you, I have let you go.
You are quiet in your grace.
When you let the roses in,
you let in the whole wide universe.

Rhythm.

The rhythm fades in and out to the beating of your heart.

The mustard is left on the windowsill; a robin chirps to me

as I pull in the driveway after a day of work. Nature is

constantly in a spiral. It moves in rhythm to the beating
of my heart, and the

doorway opens to let in the sun.

The sun shines like a round face.

The trees droop

precariously
in the blowing wind.

I have been sitting here for years,

leafing through a magazine,

while the night refuses to sing.

Query.

I sent another query out for "Into the Dark."  I sent it to Zumaya Publications.  

My Love and I Went Garlanding.

My love and I went garlanding with grass,
upon a day studded with noontime stars.
The sun hunches over; shadows cannot pass,
nor penetrate the solar plexis of Mars.

The tulips and roses bow to the sun,
the daylight and night are heathen as one;
fading, dreaming, in the depths of the dawn,
the sunlight penetrates as God begins to yawn.

My love and I went garlanding,
picking roses and acorn seeds;
a sun studded with penetrating starlight,
is all that Nature ever needs.

The star-studded day comes to an end.
The sun hunches over; shadows cannot pass,
in Timeless dawn, the colors bend,
as my love and I went garlanding with grass.

(Written age 23, I think?)

Fair Music.

Break the fair music that all creatures make,
and hollow out the world of its core,
humans roam the world and they take and they take,
not knowing what it is they’re looking for.

The fair music plays on with melodious grass,
and the air smells so sweet and fine.
I could not help but find a sweet lady lass,
and call her my heart, my valentine.

This, I give to you, a gift, a gift,
the harp you play, upon the melodious grass,
it plucks at my heart, these string that you lift,
and no other notes will let it pass.

Oh, lady love, that harp you play,
sings me to sleep upon a dewy morn.
Play this harp every bloody day,
and I’ll give you words music cannot form.

Why the small bird's grief is form'd of Dreams.

To his cold beauties on a summer morn,
love will smile its translucent smile,
with a rosy bosom, and eyes forlorn,
and all will be well in a little while.
To myself the Sun will keep my heart.
Oh cold Sun! I sing happy cheer!
When beloved’s song piped: he then came quite near,
then vanished, as soldiers were honored with
their wings of light.
Rose's thickest time of runes have opened
and there beheld a silver door;
then we saw, it 'twas the night,
and many white thorns thrust upon a dark shore.
My love, he laughing said,
"I've a sigh, 'tis reaches farther
than the light of woe!"
"Renew thy strength," I then replied,
"take your delight in the snow!"
But I could not be dark as the night,
for morn blushed rosy as clay,
and the dread hand of darkness faded from sight,
and the Sun, a lonely fen, was mine today.

(An older poem, written when I was 19, 20ish.)

Haiku.

one hacienda
on a hot July morn-
a cicada chirps.

Haiku.

Heaven moves across
the sky. I guess it is not
dawn yet. Let me sleep.

Rejection Slips, Part II.

Now, why do my poems keep getting rejected? I have been sending in poetry since I was a child and I thought my newer ones are especially good. Some well-established magazines say they like "my poems but they are not appropriate for the next issue" which is a fairly loose response, I think. I think many poetry magazines often lack in sales so they stick to people who are familiar, like Billy Collins, Martha Rhodes, and Maya Angelou-however I do not see Maya Angelou's works in very many magazines. Okay, Louis Gluck, then, I saw some of hers in the current issue of "Threepenny Review."

If poetry sales are lacking, then the publishing business really is in deep trouble-most of the people I know rarely read books; I say, "Do you read Tom Clancy?" They say, "Not lately." I say, "Do you read Anne Perry?" They say, "Who is she?" Never mind ancient poets like Rumi or Wu ti or 70s poets like Elizabeth Bishop. People like "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" now, which is okay, but there are more books than that.

Just sayin.'

To the Girl Who Thinks She Loves Me.

Well, I kind of got this idea from a guy friend who is having trouble with 22 y/os who have crushes on him...and, he doesn't like them back. I've had troubles with younger and older men myself, and it is also relevant to me. I rewrote the ending like three times.

----------------------


I look at the pictures in the photo album.
They are not mine to have.
I look at the pictures in the photo album,
and grimace as I turn each page.
I do not like the lines in your face, the
wrinkles that look like molded peaches,
the blonde hair like dirty mushrooms.

From the heart of my poems, I have seen you
here before-discussing memoirs and smoky
mirrors. Your back is turned to me,
and at first I thought I might love you,
but you turned and gave me that sly, coy smile-
the smile of a black cougar with bitter teeth.

Teeth that gnash and teeth that bite,
swift words and war wounds.
My grandfather was in WWII-he made it out,
no thanks to you, I can tell you wouldn’t
care anyhow, your mind is on shadows,
shadows that wave and bend, nothing that is
relevant or real.

I try to discuss politics with you; your grin turns
into a hiss, a whisper of words you do not think
I would understand. I am no dummy.

You try to bat your eyelashes at me, I think to myself they
are fake as your fake ID, which you bought for
three hundred dollars when you could have waited
a few years when you came of age.
I told you there is nothing between us.
Your tears are bitter.

My Mother Was Making Chamomile Tea.

My mother was making chamomile tea the day
the Vietnam War broke out. She was standing at the

stove in the kitchen, stirring a pot of water; her back
turned to the television, which was
in black and white.

Suddenly, she heard the news reporter say the word
"War," and she screamed and dropped the large spoon
she had been holding, and called her mother on the
black and white phone that hung from the wall-

war, she wheezed into the phone, and her mother, who
had seen three wars before this one, murmured, "I know,
I know," over and over again,
her words like molasses.

The soldiers, my mother said, what of the soldiers?
So brave and handsome,
are on the front line.

My grandmother:
Nothing can be done about the soldiers, they are where
they should be, God will take care of them.

I do not know if my mother believed in those words;
only the dimming of gun shots lessened after time,
and they have traded sounds-instead of gun shots,
they are now the ching! Ching of the cash register
in her sewing shop.

That is all we
hear, now, of war; and the thrum of the cars as they speed up
and down the highways, spinning tales with their
exhaust pipes.

Lost.

I find myself walking down the street
where we used to hang out, at the bar on
Seventh Avenue, or the library downtown.
We used to read books. You said books
were like flowers, trapped in a fog. You said
you read them every day; you were hooked
on them like drugs. I’ve never taken drugs.
The clouds seem to hover over us like
giant airplanes that move with the wind,
being pushed by the hands of God. I had never
seen the hands of God, but I assume they
are invisible. The Earth spins around the sun;
or maybe there’s a different way I haven't
discovered yet.

I forgot what you told me late last October, during
the full moon that was bright and beautiful
and reflected your eyes. What are the color of
your eyes again? I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten you.
Maybe it makes you sad. I wouldn't know.

Rejection Slips.

Considering the fact that the magazine SPELLED the title of my story wrong, I should be overjoyed they rejected me.

Blog.

I would post more poetry but the ones I am writing now are not finished yet. I have been focusing more on my novels.

Published in Abandoned Towers! Yay!

http://www.cyberwizardproductions.com/AbandonedTowers/toc.html

in all your terrible world waking.

in all your terrible world
waking I gently kiss
your eyes dreaming

the sharp sunlight
of april moves

gently the night
which has dark
hands.

(Wrote this a long time ago, when I was a teenager.)

Thoughts and Memories of a Rainy Afternoon.

Rain poured through my fingers like soiled sheets.
An umbrella sits, lonely, on the front porch.
I see you, sitting there, on the swing,
leafing through a copy of
USA Magazine in the pouring rain,
immersed in the pictures,
I suppose. You love to draw, it is your hobby,
you say that one day you want your pictures
to be put up in an art museum-not in Paris, you insist,
or Rome, but a local museum,
like in Boston. We live in Massachussetts.
You love Boston. It is your favorite place.
Sometimes,
we go there on Saturday mornings, and eat at the
Bagel World
on Fork Street, and watch the traffic go by.

Sometimes,
I wonder what you are thinking, if perhaps your thoughts
are about art, or me. I usually tell myself to quit it.
Most of the time,
I do not listen to myself.

How To Follow Paths.

I followed you down the path.
It was gentle and kind.
The loving was not simple;
there was no peace, only hatred.
I do not generalize. I put my hatred
in a tiny box and send it out to sea.
I gather my fruit, put it in a
basket, and sail it out to sea. It hopes to find land.
My neighbor is a woman named Lonnie.
She hardly leaves her house.

She cannot hear me from where I stand,
and call out at her-ask her if she wants
any banana bread. She always says no.
I do not think she likes bread of any
kind, her blinds are always shut, her door
is always locked, she never takes the time
to stop and smell the roses
that line her sidewalk. She drives a gray
mini van.
It is parked in the driveway.
She has not come out of her house
today. My television is on in the den,
it is time to make breakfast.
The sun just came up into the sky.
A new day enters me.

Better.

Her tears mar the windowpane.
She makes herself get up from her spot
at the window. She makes herself a cup of tea,
lilacs bloom on the window outside
the front door. She makes herself remember what she
was doing there, why she was there, what she
was supposed to be doing. That the garbage
needs to be taken out, that the dishes need
to be done. The tea is strong. It makes herself
reflect on things that have happened that day.
Her husband came home from work. The dog
barked. Someone mowed the lawn, which was filled
with crabgrass. She loved good
deeds. They filled her with a sense of belonging
she does not feel doing anything else. She thinks
it makes her see better. Instead of worse.

Riddle.

One day, when she’s old,
she’ll tell you the answer to the riddle
that has been tormenting you for years.
I have heard this one before; the words
curve like a spider’s silky web, they are
put on the shelf in the wine cellar
before being released to the public
If poems beat on the back door,
would you think to answer it?
Would you know, quickly now,
how to explain the ending to every story?
Metaphors drop out of the sky like clouds;
they land on your doorstep,
shaking and shivering in the cold.
Will you take them in?
They are orphans, you know;
they have nowhere else to go.

(Age 23, I think)

New blog I like. Poetry.

http://livingpoetry.blogspot.com/

Bologna? Tuna?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIrW7V-RG88

I wanted to add this one to my list of blogs....

But I don't know how to add it yet.

http://pleasefindthis.blogspot.com/


(Never mind I figured out how to add it.)

Magazines.

Magazines I read:

"Times" Magazine
National Geographic
The Atlantic Monthly
New York Post
Poetry Magazine
Ploughshares
The Paris Review
Threepenny Review

What Is Wood.

the light from the lamp shines
on my desk
it is such a great desk
made from polished wood
I don’t know what kind of wood
it is
maybe it is brass
but brass isn’t a kind of wood
I’ve heard of brass organs
brass rings
brass silverware
maybe the wood is made from oak
but an oak is not a desk
an oak is a tree you find in
the woods
and sometimes squirrels hide their
acorns in holes
just before they go into hibernation.

(Written age 23.)

Raphael’s Rhapsody.

There is sage in the brush behind my house.
I put a pie on the windowsill. The day comes pouring
in through my window, it is so warm I am wearing a shortsleeve t-shirt.
I am waiting for a call from my brother,
Raphael, who just moved to Brazil.

He is nervous, as he is wearing his heart on his sleeve.

He just proposed to
his girlfriend, Roxanne, who had thirteen boyfriends before him;
I assured him she would say yes, it was perfectly obvious
she wants to marry him. But even as I said this,
I had my doubts, for Roxanne is one to change her mind.
I wondered if it would work out; she is a
fashion designer,

he is a real estate agent, sometimes it does not work out
because the man cannot stand it when the woman
makes more money than he does.

I am contemplating what to have for breakfast-maybe a bagel,
maybe a bowl of cereal, Shredded Wheats, or Cornpops,
I haven’t decided yet. My cat wanders in, meowing like a cow,
hungry for something to eat-I sigh in exasperation.

He had
just pounced on a mouse this morning, dragging
the remains into the barn, sucking out its inner goodness-the
heart and the limbs, the liver and lungs, as gross as it sounds.

This makes me think of how

strange life is, and how I don’t know what it means to be
alive, only partially alive, eating fruit and vegetables,
and watching an occasional movie on my DVD player.

One day I hope to know.

My current taste in fiction books.

I feel like reading a very thick novel. I have the last Harry Potter book, but I do not feel like reading a fantasy at the moment. Maybe Michael Crichton, or Tom Clancy, Elizabeth Moon, or Nelson Demille.

Winter Falls On Cedar.

Bright winter morning, the snow flies,
sticking on fir trees and windshields. I trudge
through miles of winterland (just the driveway, really)
I open the door

to my automobile, but it is too cold to start. I trip in
the doorway as I go back inside the house, take off
my hat and coat, and call for a
taxi to take me to work.
The taxi is late;

he calls me fifteen minutes after I'm supposed
to be at work and says, "I can't make it, I'm stuck in the
driveway," with me knowing all the while he is not
stuck in a driveway, frantic to
get to his customer. I know,

at this hour, he has better things to do:
he is at home sipping a brandy in his Spiderman
pajamas, watching a rerun of The Early Morning Show.


(Written Age 22, or 23, forget.)

Geese Pond, 1985, and a Photo of My Daughter

In the summer, when the wind chimes shiver,
the light over the hills is like a beacon going south.
It can't be going south for the winter, not yet, for
the
geese are still here. My daughter is feeding the
geese
at the pond, laughing, smiling, talking to them as if
they
could talk back. And sometimes they do.
I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of her
feeding the geese, so she could look back upon it when
she
is twenty or thirty and smile. Or better yet, I wish
I had a canvas
and paints so I could draw my daughter, a still
portrait that has come to life
before my very eyes.
I write about geese in poems, I write about the long
grass
around the banks and
my daughter's jeans pushed up tenaciously around
her ankles so she
can walk into the water a little ways,
her hair in her face as she gives
a piece of herself to the geese,
and the small, shallow pond.

(I wrote this when I was 22, 23.)

Opal Rain.

The rain drenches the world in diamond colors,
red, opal, pink, pale green. The colors graze on
water lily pads, shelter things unseen, destiny
without reason, a sky without a name.
I hold you close, like there’s no tomorrow,
I hold you in my heart like words-a thumb,
a fist, a fingerprint, a beam from someone’s flashlight.

The river knows nothing, speaks nothing of rivers;
it shakes and shudders in times long lost.
The black cat creeps on its four paws, to a spot
below the river Nile, drops on all fours, and
evaporates rapidly into thinning air.

I am not light, nor color, nor tears,
the light is not green, I am not opal.
I am multi-colored, I see myself in smoky mirrors
spread out before me like cropped pollen.
It is me, I am myself, I crawl inside myself, and dwell,
hoping to rest awhile. No clocks tick here.
The spiders have spun silky spinning webs,
they are all spun out; shadows echo in spurts of gray.

I know not colors, they are not words I speak.
Light follows through, reasons unheard.
Unspoken, thoughts, dream of ‘morrow.
Forever and after,
I dream of home.

autumn harvest.

streams rush by in flowing rivers.
golden like footsteps and crimson
as peonies.

water rushes past old ears, pretty girls
flick their dresses to the wind,
storms are drive(n) to the point of
resuscitation.

an old man pleads for the corn to
stop growing-he hears it from where
he stands. he watches Oprah
and the Bad News Bears,
and,
on sundays, he stays up all night,
playing solitaire with an old deck of
cards.

harsh winds blow in straight lines.

the poet in her old house putters about,
moving this way and that to the
tune of the wind.
this is nomad’s land, tears fall
like ash and silk.

River Of Lost & Found.

One day the river will stop flowing.
I will be there to witness it.
I will stand on the bank of the river,
knee deep in the crabgrass, and watch the water
swirl slowly down, down, down, to the last
bit of water, until there is nothing,
nothing left anywhere.

One day, I will see the river, and it will
not be a river any longer.
The fish will be all gone, eaten or starved;
their skeletons littering the ground like
a graveyard,

and the bottom of the river will be a dried
bed.
Pigs will sleep in it. Beavers will move
in it, up, down, or across, and they will
sit and stare, their tongues hanging out
of their slacked mouths.

One day the river will stop flowing-
One day I will no longer be here,
one day my memories will fade,
and I will sit and think of things that are
lost.

THE FIELD OF QUIET.

the field of quiet is a withered rose
in a mesh of field (s) a mystery wrapped
in shroud when clouds shiver in an arc

and fade glistening like a glass (pass)
movement is/

Winding Down the Hours.

A black woman stands on broken rocks.
She wonders what time it is. She does not know.
Her mind sees deep within herself, the sunlight
That falls on the ground, she forces herself to move
Forward.

Time is never still.
Lost worlds and lost words, I protect myself from the tick-tock
Of the clock. A black woman walks outside to get the mail;
A pickup truck rumbles by, sounding like firecrackers.

Who’s to say what we will see, today and tomorrow?
Who’s to say what we will know, one minute from the next?
The ticking of the clock is all we have-it sounds like motors
Running, it sounds like clocks ticking.

A black woman stands on broken rocks.
A pickup truck rumbles by, sounding like firecrackers.
The clock ticks in the kitchen.

We Prosper.

When we prosper, we prosper from here to somewhere
else,
without a shadow of closure, a ring of doubt.
It surrounds us, envelopes us in wisdom we cannot
quite catch-the wisdom of wanting something that is beyond
your reach,
the wisdom that comes with the knowledge of it.

We await each day, thinking as it comes,
questioning the realm of this or that, trying to figure out
who we were before.
Even if I had told you before, you would not have listened,
you would have thought it was not a good idea.

I told you it would end up like this, you ignoring me
my entire life, me trying to find my way through the void,
the darkness, the endlessness of a dark room.

I am not Sylvia Plath. I am not a sick fiend, nor a liar,
just a woman who is trying to be who I am.
It is hard. The walking is hard, the fighting is hard,
harder than you can imagine, especially when no one knows
it’s you, when everyone fears you are missing.

I am not missing. I am at home, watching the days go by,
looking at the world outside a window that does not
belong to me. It belongs to a book. A strand of knowledge.
And your reflection.

In the Winter.

Like open doorways, I mix and mingle, I drive soiled tears
Through linen sheets. Peace is not with me; a heart is not open,
I quietly rekindle my tears, the heartache beats steady.
I wish I could bring myself out of this stupor, but nothing
Will relinquish this pain that is held on me, when my heart beats
Steadily, the thrum thrum of my heart. Who am I.
Shadows are thrown on open doorways; daylight moves in through
The open window, where a flower has fallen on a cold moaning
Of wind. This life is not forbidden, this love is not forbidden,
Nor is my heart, it beats like shadows and rivers,
Words are tossed into open wounds.
Clouds move and shift;
Secrets plummet into the world like warbled voices,
Caught in an updraft of makeshift promise. I do not know how
To say this, do not know how to speak the words that claw
Inside my chest, to say the things that must be spoken.
There is only the window, and the flower on the sill-
The darkness that thrums, and a cold winter chill.

Novel update.

I finished "Wizard's Alchemy" and turned it in to Baen. Now I am writing a new one, called "The Horn of Neverwhen." I am also working on the sequel to "Wizard's Alchemy," and it is called "Forge of Magic." I like it so far.

Update.

I have not updated in awhile.

I have been looking for jobs in North Carolina.

Was rejected by The New Yorker.

My fantasy novel is at 87000 words right now.

I bought the kindle.

writing update.

I should update.

I now live in North Carolina.

I'm waiting for Samhain Publishing to re-open submissions so I can send them my novel "Into the Dark."

I won runner's up in a literary agent contest, and just entered a Best First Line Contest on an author's web site. If I win anything I will let you know.

Rejection slip....again.

Got a rejection today from "2 River Review." How many times have I been rejected by them? Five times? Six times? Ten times? I have no idea. At least the Editor said "He enjoyed my poetry." That's a plus, I suppose.

haven't updated in months.

I'm sorry I have not updated in awhile. I mostly use livejournal and myspace now, because all my friends use that too. Let's see, what's new? So far I have gotten accepted in several other different magazines, including "Whispering Spirits," "Dark Animus," and "The Houston Literary Review." I am querying literary agents about my YA horror novel, "Into the Dark." Zebra Books is currently looking at the first three chapters of the manuscript.

In other news, I won third place in a short story contest at "Static Movement." (www.staticmovementonline.com), and I published a book through lulu.com. Go here: www.lulu.com/apryl_fox

that's all for now!

an update, of sorts.

I have not updated my blog since November.
Forgive me, forgive me, for I have been busy-
first there was Thanksgiving, with
turkey and cranberry sauce,
then there was
Christmas, with presents and the cold.
Now it is nearing the end of January, and I am
sitting at my computer,
wondering where
the time went, wondering what I should
do now.
Oh yes. Edit my story for the contest,
work on the sequel to my
novel. These are the things I need
to be doing.

update-finally!!!

I am sorry I have not updated in like a month. I moved to North Carolina at the end of July, and I have not been able to get online much.

Well, let's see, what has been happening? "Dark Animus" accepted two of my poems for publication. It is an Australian horror magazine. I get a free contributor's copy.

I have been writing my YA horror novel for the last week, and have managed to write 23,000 words. My goal is to reach 40,000 words, I hope I can make it. I would be satisfied with 27,000 words if I could not think of anything else to write. I usually write the story until I can't think of anything else to add to it.

I am going to have a poem published here soon: www.alittlepoetry.com

Today I heard back from a publisher called Lemon Shark Press, they said they are accepting manuscripts of regional literary fiction, but I don't think any of my manuscripts fit that description. However, they have published poetry books, maybe I can convince them to look at mine. It would be better than going with an e-publisher, that's for sure.

moving

Mom found a house in NC and they're flying back today *sigh.*

Then we're going to be moving in two weeks. :(

under strange and distant stars

My entire family is moving down South. My brother already moved to VA; my aunt is in FL; my sister is moving to FL; and my mom, stepdad, and I are moving to NC. I am not a fan of moving, because I have a feeling that there are some people I might never see again if I move. Sometimes I stay in touch with people, and then they get too busy to contact me, or it gets too expensive. Perhaps I will have a better way of life in NC, but I would miss MI because I was born here, and everything I know is here. I like traveling, but home is always the best place to be-under familiar stars.

I tried to get a job here so I could stay, but MI is slowly going downhill, especially where I live. I will especially miss my friend, Try.

jim baen died!

Not much to update. I am still waiting to hear back from some publishers.

Recently, I had a birthday, too, on June 28th. Also found out that Jim Baen died on my bday, he is the publisher of Baen Books, which is where I sent my fantasy novel.

poetry

by the way, does anyone know of any good poetry publishers? thanks.

new poems published.

Go here to read my newest poems:


http://yasouonline.tripod.com/id59.html

writing juice

If you are a writer, please submit your work here: www.writingjuice.com they publish poetry, stories, and articles.

thanks!

apryl

speculative poetry

I rewrote the article for "Writing Juice" twice, all I have to do is type it up on the computer. It's fun to write articles but I like to write things that I already know about-it was a writing article, but the Editor wanted me to write something about writing groups and I had a hard time figuring out what to write. I have never joined a writing group, around here they only have writing groups for teens or for older people.

Anyway here's a new poem:



How to Grow a Kingdom (24 lines)

I've got to have the
chance to exercise my right
to look out of windows &
see the world for what it is:
shaded and dark
a night without stars
and the ruined portrait
by Leonardo da Vinci leaning precariously against the wall
it will fall
if you touch it
don't let it fa
l
l

life puzzles me but there
are still flowers,

there are purposes to why im here
the lingering smell of coffee
reaches my nostrils
those fresh beans magic beans that ive hidden
in my pocket
hoping to plant them to
grow a kingdom.


(I'll still post that book review sometime this week.)

strange horizons

"Strange Horizons" published my poem. If you want to read it go here: www.strangehorizons.com

AND they paid me twenty dollars. Whoot!!

Apryl

I have not written anything worth posting lately. When I do write something worthwhile I will let you know.

Hope everyone had a good Easter and New Year (Cambodia's New Year is around the same time as Easter).

Here is a good link for publications on the net (and print):

www.clmp.org

Acquaintance With Time

I saw her face, Time, so quiet and still.
I passed before her on the grass,
I did not know it was her until,
my watch moved slow as melting glass,
glass that I wished that I could fill.
She spoke to me; no words I heard,
for her beauty was bright to see,
I could not speak but a word,
my mind fluttering like a frigid bird,
and then she walked away from me,
and I could speak again at will.

Ode To Spring's Lament

It is springtime; the sky is bluer than
the blue upon which I see
Heaven's clouds.

In the thawness of an old winter, we
weep words no one else can hear;
our hidden heartache is steady.

It is always springtime when
darkness blooms.
I call Ode to your sweet
lips,

Ode to the crowd of the unlamented eye,
Ode to bliss which comes
straight from Heaven.
Lilacs bloom on garden walls;
it is Springtime.
Hear the birds twitter at dusk.

-From my chapbook, Winter's Light

thunderclouds

Thunderclouds
wrestle with drops
of wet,
giant spit

that fall from the sky
and make love
to the ground.

back

Back to writing my fantasy novel.

that was nice of them.

Dear Apryl,

Thank you for submitting your work to Pebble Lake Review. Unfortunately,
given the volume of submissions that we receive, even QUALITY work often
has to be rejected. Please be assured that your submission was read
thoroughly and given careful consideration by our staff. We wish you best
of luck placing your work elsewhere.

Sincerely,


Editor, Pebble Lake Review

mmm fortune cookie.

I finished writing my article for "Writing Juice" Magazine. I have not sent it in yet today because I want to edit it first.

Almost finished with the spreadsheet for "The Rose and Thorn Ezine." Also sent in my article to "63 Channels." All they have to do now is reject it for me. :)
Sometimes I wish I had help with getting published, sometimes I want to get it on my own.

I wonder...do I really WANT to be a best-selling author? I mean, if my books sell well, and they make movies out of them, my novels will become a way for someone else to make money off of my hard work, my ideas.

But still...I have to find SOME way to pay my bills.

As they say patience is the path to all wisdom.

If I learn patience, then I will learn true wisdom.

That sounds like someone's fortune in a fortune cookie.

rejection slips.

I got like four rejection slips this week.

Go me!

aqua

6 months had passed since
that day I did not see you in the park.
It was a gorgeous afternoon
and I was
taking my dog, Her Royal
Highness, Princess of the

Dogs, for a walk. I looked for
you for two hours before
the bums came out at twilight,
and one offered to knit
me a homemade afghan if I gave
them fifty dollars. I declined, but the
word afghan made me think:
do afghans come from Afghanastan?

Do they have trees in Afghanastan?
Or toilets? Where did they get their
water, or "aqua," as they say in
Spanish, though I don't
think the Afghans speak Spanish.
Not the rugs, the country.

Princess of the Dogs--or Princess,
for short--is part Dalmation,
part Sharpee, part
something else: Chihuaha, maybe,
or Mexican.

But she doesn't speak Spanish.
I am not bilingual, though
I know a few
words in Spanish:
"Hola," "Adios," "abuela."
Water is "aqua," there is
not much "aqua" in Mexico.

Does Mexico have many beaches?
I ask a Spaniard this question--
perhaps he is a "hombre"?
He shrugs. "No, chica.
No habla ingles. No aqua."
"Water" is "aqua." "Blue" is azuel."
No means the same
thing in every language.

excerpt from my new YA thriller, "Into the Dark"

"Place is said to be haunted," Jimmee told her. "Maybe some ghost called you here, girl. Maybe you was supposed to be here, maybe someone called you here." He grinned, exposing a mouth full of cragged teeth.

Obviously she was dealing with a loony toon.

"I don’t believe in ghosts," Samantha told him in a firm voice. She was proud that her voice held steady. "They don’t exist."

"Don’t make no difference," Jimmy informed her. "Just ‘cause a man says somethin’ don’t mean it’s true. Hey, kid, maybe I’m a ghost."

He threw his head back and laughed, a cold, dry laugh. It was like leaves scraping across the sidewalk.

Samantha took a step backwards, afraid.

"Don’t worry about me, miss," he told her. "I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Sorry if I scairt you. It gets lonely down here, some nights. Why don’ you stay awhile, girl?" he whispered, his eyes hungry and evil and cold. "It gets mighty lonesome."

Samantha didn’t answer. She turned and ran from the room, her feet pounding on the white tile floor.

She wanted to get away from this place—and the strange janitor with his evil eyes—as fast as possible.

Flower Tones

A voice whispers in the calm moving day.
We forge great shadows on hospital walls.
What sun greets us as we fought in May,
the distant Autumn whose eyes lov'd these stalls?

In yonder early light the sun still shone,
and the windless eaves beat against the back-toned thought,
in early the grass spoke that dawn was gone,
and we liv'd tomorrow in breathless drought.

So we cross great a many leaping tide,
and the seraph was ours to every faithful friend,
the depth of a wild night was theirs to hide,
and light will cross again and strengthen.

We forge each hearth on beating glass wings,
we bang on the golden at crown's distant door,
our silver slender harp as each it sings,
and tomorrow vows its fables like it did before.

When many muse we question the lion's harsh bearing,
the great beast came knocking at zealous hours.
He dregs up those songs that need the hearing,
for his words bellow strongly with the tone of flowers.

untitled

Dearly beloved, these words are not mine,
I am wrapped in a kind of
bliss utterly unlike me.

"Dearly beloved,"
I try to say, over and over again,
my words, oh my words, not wanting to form
correctly in my mouth.
They are in my heart,
not my head.

I'm the boy who's stuttered all through high school,
the freckled-faced, gangly
boy with stick-straight
legs and thick glasses, the boy who loved
science and comics and too much sugar.
Now here I am

saying "Beloved,"
as if the cat had caught my tongue,
and I'm trying to get it back.
"Beloved," I whisper one more time,
and the words curve just right.

In June I am Picking Roses

and it is sweltering.
The wind rocks me back and forth in the hammock,
and whispers:

Sleep, sleep.
I wonder if night will ever come.

A door creaks open behind me, fireflies buzz quietly.
The spaceman in the doorway
hands me stars to hold up the
moon, because I cannot hold them up by myself.

"Are stars fireflies?"
I ask the spaceman.
"No," he says, "they are flowers,
growing in a dead universe."

Fragments

Fragments.
An incandescent speck of light.
Sound, noise, the faded symmetries
of the downed hieroglyph,

another marriage on the rocks.
Forced entry. Doomsday prophets.
How obscene is the hench thug?

Open your eyes to a new summer.
Drink a little, let down your hair,
have an open conversation with the
water lilies about procreation, or
sing a sad tune about
the closing of another year.

Equinox

1.

The old man wanders from his yard.

His family, frantic, searches every hospital

within a forty mile radius.

He’s there, then he's not. Exhausted, the family returns

home to find him sitting on the couch, eating a box

of prunes.

It’s best not to ask questions.

2.

I am cornered in the house.

My toes stick out, raw from metaphors.

The warts on my feet are old and yellow, they start to

peel like a banana. I am old, I am growing old,

my memories gray as ash.

-Published in Underground Window, recently revised

The Treehouse

In my backyard, the tree
house is fringed with memories of despair.
The wind shifts form.

A butterfly perches
on the windowledge,
and is caught in an updraft.

With a slight raise
of an eyebrow,
I challenge its flight.

-published in Mageara Magazine

where has time gone

A tired man sits behind a desk in a tired skyscraper
he is not thinking of anything work-related

in fact he is thinking of last summer when he took the
kids to Disneyland,

where they got to shake Mickey's Hand and rode
the rollercoaster
that was so long ago
the kids are grown up now

Billy has a tattoo and Jenny is just about to get married,
and he wonders where has the time gone and pokes
in his jacket pocket for a slim cigarette.

-published in Winter's Light

Reflections of Morning

No, the sky was not so gray
as it was now, I glimpsed the sun
rising in the dawn, glimpsed it the way
an archeologist would glimpse the first sight
of Atlantis.
It has been snowing since 6am this morning,
and I woke up, shivering, in the dark.
Sweat glistened on my forehead and back,
it hardened into ice. I looked
like the Iceman Cometh, just before
he left for his long trip to Antarctica,
where the other iceman lived and thrived.
I wondered if the icemen had icewomen
or icedogs, wondered if there was an ice family.
It’s something to think about, you know,
just something to think about.
I had never met an iceman myself,
since I was from Cuba, I can’t survive
in the cold, I can’t live without a parka.
I turn the thermostat way up high, past seventy,
but the bill does not matter, I’m shivering
so much it hurts. The sun is out; it is not so gray;
but it is cold, and I rise out of my bed and plod
over to the shower, turn on the hot water and strip
myself naked, look at my body in the
bathroom mirror. The mirror is fogging up.
I think again of the iceman, and how maybe
they did not have mirrors in Antarctica,
maybe they looked at themselves in a sheet of
floating ice, and were never cold because
they wore furs.

can we have our ball back?

can we have our ball back?

memories, reflections.

I remember you because of tea and scones.

Gift From the Dragon

she who was born in the year of the dragon did
not know of her gifts until 1988, when her husband
pulled into a rundown gas station she sat in the car
while he pumped the gas and suddenly said,
"wait, wait, i am picturing it now, picturing
it as it could be," and then came a poem she
found beauty in that rundown gas station, found beauty in
that nothingness a year came and
went and the beauty
was still there she wrote poetry about everything
and nothing, about the clouds and the
grass and the birds and the people, she found
beauty in the simplest of things "everything and nothing is beautiful,"
she says she always asks God,
"Did You make poetry? Am I the beholder?"
she did not receive an answer, but still
she writes-still
she finds beauty where beauty could
not be found,
in rundown things and rundown people,
she who was born in the year of the dragon.