I’m alive now,
after so many months
& years-
follow us, the lead ship flashed
and so we landed on Titan-
where the waves overtook us
so gentle, so vast
I rocked on & on through oblivion.
I know that Storm like the back of my mind
on & on, she raged-
the last reality
against the dying.
–L
Liz looked at her friend.
Why would she do this?
She shifted her gaze to the pill bottle on the nightstand. So small. But she had taken so many.
Liz reached out to touch the cold cheek. All trace of color having long since fled.
The sky was gray. It seemed that even the sun could not stand the sight of the coffin.
The gravestone was simple. A name and a small carving of a firefly.
The parents of the girl stood off to the side. Near the edge of the crowd. On a sudden impulse Liz walked over to join them.
* * *
The day after the funeral Liz went to the house. The mother of her dead friend had asked her to come. Today they were going to go through the possessions of one who would never again enter the room she had inhabited for all fourteen years of her life.
In a box on the top shelf of the closet Liz found a disorganized stack of papers. She read the first page and sank to her knees.
* * *
Poetry. Page upon page of poetry.
She was a poet. All that beauty, all those words. And we never knew. And now she’s gone.
Liz gathered the sheets and pressed them to her heart. The tears ran down her cheeks. She let them. But she couldn’t just sit and let these pages, the words on them, and the girl who had written them, be forgotten.
* * *
The bell on the shop door jingled. A woman walked in. She went to a stand stand near the front door and picked up the book so prominently displayed on its shelves.
FIREFLY
a collection of poems
written by June Smith
compiled by a friend
The woman sat down and opened the book. she read a few pages, then flipped to the author bio in the back. She let out a small gasp and her eyes clouded over as she blinked back tears. A few minutes later she left the shop, her purchase clutched to her chest. On her way home she stopped at a trash can and threw away the bottle of sleeping pills she had been carrying in her pocket.
–Stella A. Brown {Firefly written August 2018. Author’s age, at time of writing was, & currently is, 13. Stella Brown runs a magazine called “The Quantifiable” an excellent little zine with talented contributors. I will share further information on “The Quantifiable” in future posts.}
The day was golden. There were honey cakes, and mead, and apricots and golden beets, and fresh baked loaves, and golden butter, buttercups and everything was golden. There were plates of gold and knives of gold and cloths of gold. The tiny snakes threading around the goblets were golden, the goblets themselves were golden, the wine was golden.
The nails of the women who served the foods were golden, the hairs of the children were golden. Curly and straight and short and long: all golden. Their tiny teeth were golden, their laughter hung in the air, it too was golden. The fish in the pond shimmered gold and the water had gold dust specks, the water itself was hard and it was also golden.
The men walking into the room wearing one shouldered garments and solemn faces and serious faces and calculating faces, their faces and their garments were golden.
The members of the audience were golden. Their eyes and cheeks were golden. Their comments, newly spoken, were golden. Their hands and playbills and wristwatches were golden. The floor was golden, the doors leading out into the streets were golden. The whole theater was golden,
for a moment and then it was gone, in a Golden Flash.
–L. Brown {The Golden Flash}
1.
The “man” had grey hair- but he wasn’t old. His skin was green like green abalone, but only slightly. You might say he was only slightly odd, and only very slightly suspicious.
He was tall and graceful and Jocelyn knew him by sight-her quarry, Thaesaille.
He was deadly when frightened, and so young. All his kind were deadly at this age and even more so when fully grown. She had read what she could on Thaesaille’s people, the Ablènee. There wasn’t much to be found. They were born male, but during their mysterious adolescence a very few would switch gender. These became the Mothers and Teachers of new and adolescent Ablènee. They were also keepers of the libraries, mysterious places believed to reside in the heads of the Mothers instead of referring to a structural dwelling. The culminated wisdom and knowledge of the Ablènee were contained within the Mothers, but you could never find them. Having not yet reached maturity, Thaesaille would fetch an extra high price. If he could be caught that is. The Ablènee were not an easy people to catch.
Jocelyn was not in this so much for the money as she was for the prestige. She really needed this chance to restore herself in the Underworld. Her reputation had taken a hard hit when her last job ended unsuccessfully because she had failed to claim her bounty. Jocelyn had narrowly avoided arrest and exposure. She suspected sabotage, from the client or from a friend, she couldn’t be sure, possibly both. These were risks you took in her line of work. Besides, you didn’t really have friendships in the Underworld, you had opportunities. What was it Tan had said after betraying her to the Narvono Drones? “We’re all opportunists down here, darling”, she smiled at the memory. She smiled at the thought of Tan. Better to think about something else.
With this new job successfully completed surely she would be welcomed back into the Graces of the Council, perhaps even back in the running to be a Muse. The Title of Muse meant you were guaranteed honest clients and a home in the Overlands. High in the Sky, a virtual paradise.
Her quarry stiffened,
He sensed her.
Dammit, this was going to be tricky.
2.
Thaesaille put down the shimmering Blinthian apple he had been holding. The market stall owner had just asked him where he was from. Thaesaille smiled down at him and answered, in a voice that sounded somewhere between a bird song and the winds of a storm, “nowhere”, and then vanished. The old man was annoyed, but not for long. A familiar scent suddenly filled the air, taking him back to a cherished and well worn memory. The old man forgot about Thaesaille, he forgot about his stall and the shimmering apples. He found himself sitting on a blanket under the Blinthian Sun, a little child sitting in his lap, telling him a story in her sing-song voice. He laughed and touched his cheek where she had just kissed it, his little daughter Myara. Where did she find such stories! By the time the old man came back from the memory, Thaesaille had shifted shape into a buxomly woman with two heads and six arms and quite a lot of bosom. She was balancing pails of flowers and laughing and her skin had a shimmery sheen, like abalone.
………to be continued, here or elsewhere.
i heard the dog star calling last night-
following my grandmother’s path, i took to the ridges of Appalachia {the dogwoods are blooming, the honeysuckle is ripe} fragrant the trail and quietly the earth is turning towards the Dog Star- I am turning
with arms raised. The fretting is past. I am a Hero following the Summer, following the path my grandmother laid, towards the mountains rich with life, with learning. The dog star rises- what is home,
asks the Dog- but chasing the path Grandmother Rabbit made?
“It is Story that heals us,
that shape shifts us,
that saves us.”
…an old horse stood on the street. he was going to be taken to the slaughter-house for he had served out his purpose. the butcher sat in a bar and drank.
he won’t know either, the girl thought, but I’ll ask anyway since he’s an old horse and must certainly know a great deal. so she asked the horse {about fairy tales}…
the horse looked at the girl and snorted with his nostrils and stamped with his hoofs “you are looking for the fairytale?”
“yes.”
“Then I don’t understand,” the horse said, “why are you still looking since this is the fairytale already!”
and the horse blinked at the girl “hmmmm, it seems to me that you yourself are the fairytale. you are looking for yourself. yes, yes the closer I look at you, the more I can see it. you are the fairytale. come, tell me a story!”
the little girl was at first greatly embarrassed. but then she began to tell a story. she told about a young horse was very handsome and won all the prizes at the race-track. and about a horse at the grave of his master. and about wild horses who lived out in the open.
and the old horse wept and said: “thank you! yes, yes, you are the fairytale! I knew it all along!”
the butcher came, and the horse was slaughtered.
on Sunday the little girl was at home with her parents, and they had horsemeat for dinner since they were very poor.
but the little girl would not touch anything. she thought about the horse and how he had wept.
“she doesn’t eat horsemeat,” her mother said “then you”ll eat nothing”
“she’s a spoiled princess,” her brothers and sisters said.
and the little girl ate nothing.
but she knew no hunger.
she thought about the old horse and how he had wept, and she was full.
yes, she was a fairytale.
The call said:
Go to the moor.
Live wild there.
Eat only 🌿nettles🌿
for one year.
This is what I did.
–Tom Hirons {Nettle-Eater}
these things we threw away,
apple peelings, crusts of bread-
we wiped the table clean,
except I held a picture of you, behind.
I held it up- I thought-
I pocketed it beyond your reach-
but still,
you crushed the flowers-
so awkward was your strength…
and it resonated: your fierce hand- your eyes knife blue.
if I had another life-
we would set the table again-
with lilies and crocuses
I would take you
where we tried to go-
between your awkward fingers
we would weave a carillon from all these flowers,
and shout from the bell-towers
“Flowers for Otto!!! Flowers for Otto!!!”
-L 2013 {flowers for Otto}
~it is going like this:
…moonlight and water,
the bright stars under my tongue,
and there he is, Jupiter- full of glory
& sacrifice: see the red scar? A wound he’s
not afraid to show, and I hope my rings can keep
him away, just elbow’s length, just enough to glow.
