Fiction – A Midsummer’s Blog

Indaatrix – Ameriak goddess of travels

To wed a mortal man
Indaatrix did implore
The goddess of all man,
The goddess great and fair

Beseechingly she knelt,
And set forth her plight
Her heart she said would melt,
So against the laws she’d fight.

little red owl

Come, king’s daughter, little red owl
Away from the dogs that at night prowl
From your mother’s worn out heart
Wash off her kisses, love, and restart
To your brothers bid forever adieu
This shall be the only path for you

Lullaby sang in Cortos

“Softly softly lay thy head
Down upon thy cotton bed
Sleep now sleep now child of mine
Guarded by the Hand Divine

Let thy mind now wander free
Through the autumn apple-trees
Light upon the boat so small
Row on down the waterfall

Drift on down the living stream
Set thy bow for the Ocean’s dream.”

(Cortos is a fictional country in my most recent novel Tears and a Starlit Sky)

An unfinished experiment with narration

A Child for the King

I remember when I was born. Distant, and yet, barely a day ago. Sometimes when I lay in the desert sun, breathing in heat and coughing out sand, running my long fingers over my aching wounds, and chanting the prayers of healing, I long for the womb from which I came. It was all warm and wet darkness in the womb and I dwelt within it, existing without purpose yet satisfied with my life. But then it broke. Rocking and confused, dizzying tumbling around in the darkness groping at the bumpy walls, then brilliant light streaming through cracks.

Tears and a Starlit Sky, chapter 2: Endless Walking

Crouching down and setting Nika between my legs, I grabbed Rurik’s jaw and pried his mouth open. Putting three fingers into his mouth I fished out the body of a bug—no, spider?—and discarded it.

Tears and a Starlit Sky, chapter 1: To Endless Wilds

My tiara slid forward, tilting into my eyes, and I regretted not having cast it aside earlier. Shaking my head, I threw it off. Metal clanged against rock somewhere below, an echoing sound which seemed three times as loud as I had expected. Shaking, I struggled to find another handhold on the rocky cliffside. My hand found a sharp outjunt and I grabbed it, pain blooming in my hand. With a gasp I yanked my hand back and tried not to cry as warm blood ran down my palm and dripped onto my pink summer dress. Closing my eyes, I took a couple deep breaths, then opened them and slowly began climbing, ignoring the stinging pain from the gash as it was pressed into dirty rock.

thoughts from the littlest child of the moon

(aka a poem I wrote at two in the morning)

Have you ever received
A silver invitation?
Have you ever seen
A king’s coronation?
Have you ever been told
That your hearts stone?
Have you ever glowed
With lights stolen?

the rhythm of passing time

by Zahur

Ra-ta-ta-tah! Rain on the pavement, rain in the street
Falling in sheets across the grey brick city, autumn’s tears
Gently waters the dying fields of gold-brown wheat
And washes away the scars and toils of the passing years
Bringing the taste of musting life and soft earth sweet

Dance! Dance! Cold bruised feet across wet concrete
In the falling rain, with the tears so cold
Cool to the skin and nourishing to the soul
Wash away the heartache, sooth the stinging feet
In the dusking evening autumn does control

a father and a child

by Zahur

Trodding, plodding, every step a fight against survival
Every step a searing pain, betrayed by mother earth
Every blow against the back, and unrelenting trial
The unrelenting fight to take her very worth
To strip her to her bones, to take her dearest smile

Her humanity, it wavers, she gives a little cry
To the ground she tumbles, to lay there, and to die
The whip it is relentless, mercy here a foreign word
Shall she give up now? Her screams, are they unheard?

to lady wisdom

The only currently found fragment of Zahur’s poem in tribute Lady Wisdom.