hangman · press

The will of the wind

 

The hawk glides, dips a wing

Chipped like a woodsman’s axe

In mid swing, an inclination,

A pioneering struggle, surrender,

Balanced on the turbulent zephyr,

Yielding only to its relentlessness.

Retaliating with severe aviation.

The golden wheat, like galloping horses,

The reckless manes shimmering,

Spurred by the restless west wind,

Whipped and kindled into a fury.

Afire, willed by the industrial gusts,

The frenzy spreading through fields

Blazing across the bituminous plains.

And, if it be the will once again,

Igniting the horizon only to begin

The day again in that same flame.

 

I labour a stare into the mystic breeze

Trying, like a surgeon searching for souls,

To watch it bring me to life as I stand,

Or soar with the hawk, and as the wheat,

Bend like worship to that western wind

Willing the world with each breath.

theories of synchronicity

 

for example, any-

time, or exactly at that moment

when the radio-waves have read

your mind like braille, like instructions,

your song becomes the song (in)definite)

should you act surprised

should you tell them it was you all along

 

fire, said a doctor, took millions of years

who is attributed with type, with writing, with communication, with the

  paintings that tell tales of hunting and mating and stuff we can(’t) explain

then migration

then communication

then colonization

then synchronization

then bang or blip

 

now there’s (where do I start?)

waves

light-photon/X-ray/ultra-violet/infrared/gravity?/sound-voice/phone/radio/

passing through you like time, like water through a screen door, but wait, like

  rain and clouds and that revolving water cycle you learned in high school

  biology                     

 

how many thoughts are your own

fire, said a doctor, is original thought

 can you imagine fire

 can you imagine

 can you

 can

 

now people are teaching everyone one word, or one set of words

past / post communication

and, remember the pictures of satellites with the red lines criss-crossing from

  here to there and back then over there and down and spider-webbing dizziness.

  where we are the flies

 

space-junk

how can that word be?

large canisters crashing in farmer’s field luckily he moved the cows last Sunday

  to the other pasture ‘cause of feed rotation and fertilizer for next years hay crop

but if your chances are nil

and you worry about the coffee line 

and the person behind you is worried about the coffee line

and the person behind them is worried about the coffee line

and the person behind them is worried about the coffee line

 

but if your chances are close to nil

and they grow slimmer (believe me they have laws)

then when will it boil down?

 

the hubble telescope sees further than copernicus

yet he had more answers

schematic:

big bang, growth; big stretch, shrink; big crunch,

a million galaxies at the end of this sentence •

closest route to point A, along a nonlinear distance, is a circle

a cycle, a sphere; like pluto / like hydrogen

the smaller they look the similar they appear

it’s relative, said a doctor, a sliding scale

 

“it’s a small world” she’s retelling a story of meeting acquaintances across the

  world in a(nother) coffee shop, and they smiled and asked the same questions

coincidence 

big news last year: the dna of a fruit fly had slightly (not astronomically) less

  genomes than homo sapiens

so egocentrism had woundings

and the universe seemed a little bigger

 

binary horticulture along a laser beam

If we were to extend our vision to the end of the universe, to the end of time,

  we’d see the back of our heads

a cycle, a sphere; like a galaxy / like kinetic-potential energy

cellulartelephonophobia

it contagious, or should be

but the in-box is full - directly related to personal elation

wireless, tireless, floating in electronic limbo finding ourselves in warehouses

  accepting eternity as doubledipped microchipped starship relationships/

  induced to enjoy the oblivion

more and more and more

and more

reading, singing, talking, thinking, breathing, wheezing

the same/ not your self/ not even More knew

 

then

bang

or blip

and it’s

finished.

L

Between the city lights there is darkness. When the city is settling in and the dreamers are ready to begin, there is darkness. As stragglers mumble and wander home, walking through the abandoned parks on cobblestone, they wonder at the darkness. It shifts behind the gnarled trees and shuffles on the far side of the street. It lurks below abandoned cars, it flaps beneath gull’s wings, it huddles on the nape of an exposed neck. It moves.
A typewriter would click away in a dimly lit room. Outside, where even the moon was of no help, sat darkness. The night was a gloom, but the darkness was an intruder. The stars would be faint and the moon just a sliver, sitting sideways like a slice of fruit. The darkness would move closer to the rumbling zing of the typewriter. The hard pierce of oiled clicking as letters became words and the swish of a new line was like a carnival, like a calliope. The darkness under the window swallowed the light. The darkness waited.
After hours of clicking the typewriter would stop. The light would go out. The darkness would enter.
This had been going on for quite some time. As the seasons greened and blossomed then yellowed and froze, the darkness would visit the typewriter. The darkness would slip under the slightly open window and slither towards the typewriter. The ‘writer sat atop a rug. The rug covered a worn wooden floor. A bed lay beside. A body, a young body, would be asleep, usually alone, in the bed. The darkness, with generously large eyes could see a swimming color on a small haphazard mound of paper beside the typewriter. It would waver closer to the desk. More silent than a waiting room, quieter than anesthetic and faster than chrysalis, the darkness would approach the desk. It would hover above the papers. The darkness would then produce an aberrant looking satchel. The bag opened and the darkness slowly would grab the first page.
The writing on the paper swam in a technicolour of neon grey and sparkled-purple. The darkness tentatively opened its bellicose maw and quietly sucked at the letters. The swirls of written effluvium danced towards the dark thing’s puckered muzzle. It sucked the page clean in seconds and let out a fugacious hiss. The dark thing was turgid with shadow, it radiated unlight. The darkness would quickly fill the satchel with the glamourous print, guiltily, eyeing the corners of the room and the slightly opened window with malice. The ancient, motley bag would inflate as the swirls of colour were sucked off the page. The writing remained, only they would be lifeless, shells of words, scraps of letters. Then it would return the pages. And huddle off. The window would whistle as the darkness left and the sleeper would grimace as a nightmare ended.
One night, close to fall, the darkness visited. A greedy hunger accompanied the darkness as it slipped in through the window. Only one page, half covered in writing, sat beside the typewriter. The dark thing ate the colorful substance quickly, hunger unsatisfied. The darkness peered around the room with unblinking orbs. Anger and impatience and hunger forced the darkness to the side of the snoring bed. A hand was exposed from the covers. The fingertips glowed with the same neon grey and sparkly purple as the letters had. The darkness glowered at the fingers.
It bent quickly taking a finger in its truculent mouth and sucked. The sleeper spasmed but the darkness would not let go, it sucked with vigor. Each finger dulled with colour, dulled with life, until nothing. The dark thing stopped and let the fingers drop from its shark-toothed mouth. It had drained the sleeper, almost completely.
The sleeper awoke. The darkness vanished. The window whistled. The sleeper looked at his hand and made a slow fist. His hands ached. He rubbed them together. He sat up in his bed and wondered at what woke him. He tried to remember his dream. Nothing. He tried to imagine a dream. Nothing. Or imagine anything.
Nothing.

Steffer closed the door to the knight’s humble chamber after a cordial goodnight. The monks stoic face, reserved for the brother of the Three, melted off into an expression of discontent. The monk was worried. The knight had been in the monastery for two nights now and not one word of his mysterious situation. The knight had been, for the most part, silent saving speech for gratitude or the odd ingenuous inquisition. Steffer, walking the barren hallway down to his own sparse room, glanced out one of the rooms slight windows. A large orange moon was gaining on the night. Stars singularly emerging after a days rest. Birds of day quiescent to the oncoming darkness, birds of night swooping silently through the cooling air. A breeze, cold and quick, rustled the aged monk’s robes, he gathered the sweeping cloth around his shivering shoulders and, with an extra uneasy briskness, shuffled to his room. his retreat was enforced by an uncommon howl from a distant wolf to the full faced lunar light. In the echoing melody off the lupine call there raised another sound, creaking, grinding, sounds of motion, sounds of waking.
Steffer, robes wrapped tight, darted eyes around the darkened surroundings not looking at anything trying to make out the barely audible ruckus. The wolves had quieted but there seemed to be a different more proximate commotion. A strange, almost industrious noise, from outside. Steffer, luminous candelabra in hand hurried down the corridor towards the dining halls grand swirling staircase. His bubble of light giving only brief life to the cobbled walls and odd tapestry as the monk continued by. He downed the stairs and stopped. Footsteps, to the left. Raising the light just slightly Steffer peered into the stygian folds beyond the candles.
“Hello?” tentative.
A cough. Then a waxing light, not different from Steffer’s.
“greetings Steffer it is just I,” A figure rounded the last of the stairs. It was Griffon. Headmaster monk. “seems I am not the only curious nightstalker this evening.”
“No, sir,” Steffer started toward the west wing with Griffon beside. They walked in silence straining to catch more of the frenetic sounds from without. They approached the double doors which lead out to the old cemetery. They stopped, listening. The same grinding, slow. The sound seemed imagined.

medievel zombie short story...



The traveler, without horse or invitation, laboured up the cobbled steps of the monastery. With shabby gunnysack draped over one shoulder, the figure clanged a gauntleted fist against the large oaken doors in a calculatingly desperate rhythm. The sun slowly settled into the evening’s gloaming, crows clamoured along the jutting rooftops, a languid breeze rustled leaves like lullabies. The way had worn heavily upon the traveler, a lugubrious tiredness hung at his bones, reflected out his unkempt face, puffed from his swollen, disquieted eyes. The door opened. The traveler was cautiously greeted by a bareheaded wrinkled monk.
“We usually do not use the courtyard entrance,” slowly, drawn out, as if the brother was repeating a lesson to a young pupil.
The traveler bowed his already low head, listened for a second to an anonymous echo of industrious noise. He nodded slowly and raised his weary eyes. A proud brilliance eclipsed by exhaustion and a deeper, darker disturbance shone from them. He straightened to a noble posse, dispite his obvious enervated state, as he pulled his road poncho over his head revealing a pendulous holy relic. The monk’s eyes soften at the ornament, he mouthed the words, “Triadian knight.” The traveler nodded again, trying out a rusty smile.
The monk hurriedly gestured to enter mentioning the impending nightfall. The traveler lumbered through the door in obvious need of nourishment and healing. An angry red infection was radiating from a sobbing wound on his arm; a slight wince and hidden limp suggested he was in serious pain. Weary from the road, hurt more in his heart. The story would be heard later. The monk gently guided the knight into the monastery and into their care.
“Many thanks brother,” the knight managed through dry lips, the monk patted his back as if saying you are safe now, you are in good hands. The monk paused, glanced momentarily at dusk’s marvelous artistry then watched inquisitively at the back of the decrepit figure’s retreating hobble. This entire scenario was, it would seem, a complete reversal of historical posture. The knights of the sacred Three, through the past centuries, were the heroes, were usually the ones to come to the rescue, to lend support and courageously defend. The first time, a legendary feat as the scrolls detail, was the incident of the dreaded fire beast. The foul wyrm. The knights managed to banish the wicked thing after weeks of valiant strategy and battle. Then there was the great winter floods. Again the knights fought the elements with courage and unheeded dedication. And, unforgettably, the Great Surge, which Steffer had been witness, though quite young. Knights died terribly defending the country side in those fierce battles. The efforts of the knights were legend in the monastery and the surrounding villages. There were even a number of the sons of Three buried in the monastery’s vast ancient graveyard. The sons of Three usually took care of themselves and almost always traveled together, and never had Steffer seen a Triadian knight weary, wounded, or alone. Steffer persuaded the knight into the infirmary, ordering with unspoken looks, food, water and aid. Acolytes hustled about readying a bed and warm water and some comfortable wear. Steffer called for the monasteries top healer.
The wisened monk helped remove a heavy, tattered chain linked tunic, oxidized from days of wear and neglect. Steffer assets the traveler’s wounds. The knight’s arm looked the worst, gouged deep, the rough tourniquet soaked through days ago. The knight sat back, nothing but small clothes and the dirty gunnysack, which he had set on his legs in front of him. The cloth of the sack rumpled loosely around its contents. Steffer gave the dirty sack a thoughtful look, but left all questions unasked.
The knight sat motionless with the drink and ale in front of him.
“Forgive me brother,” the knight directing his gruff apology to Steffer, “but custom of the Three forbids bread to be broke alone.”
“Heed not the formalities of companion dinning here my son.” Yet the knight did not stir, only watched the monk stoically. Steffer waved for another plate and mug which were promptly brought.
“Thank you brother.” The knight raised his glass, spoke an ancient prayer, made the sign of the Three and drank his ale in a draught with satisfying gulps. Steffer smiled behind his own glass, forgetting for a second of what might have brought this capable young knight to them in such condition.

The matutinal light of the early sun shone a colony of robed men working methodically and purposefully as people do when necessity commands. The expansion of the monastery was labourious, slow and kept most of the brothers bustling and negligent of their other duties. Midmorning mass was missed and noon prayer was over a diaspora of sweaty monks kneeling and setting about the construction site. Priests and other spiritual officials lead many prayers around the inevitably desecrated graves. The left wing of the monastery, or the nascent addition, was to protrude where the east side cemetery sat. Tombs were ceremoniously deconstructed and moved, graves and markstones were to be relocated in the new cemetery far past the orchard. The time being saw oaken boxes, golden caskets, and various other styles of coffins scattered between the building materials, tools and blistered monks. The site was haphazard but the building was under way, hundreds of dead lay with the living as midday meal came to a close. Monks, finished with midday feast, started gathering tool and fresh boards, barrows of stone and dirt, scaffolds and shovels, like ants or bees.
Steffer came around the far side of the monastery limping knight in tow, clean, feed, and almost fresh. The eyes, Steffer noticed, everything in repair but those eyes. The old monk lead the lone son of Three carefully by the arm and started to point out trivial progresses of the monastery’s expansion. That was the tomb of great Gerard, pointing to a new support column; over there down that trail will be the new cemetery. The knights eyes, Steffer noticed, regarded deeply the dark soiled wood of the desecrated coffins. They continued on their way. The knight pausing one last moment eyeing the sordid mound of decaying coffins as the myriad of monks worked under the sun.