tidal

The moon
sheds its skin
across the sand
a cold and quiet place

A wind gnaws
along the jawbone
of the
coast
and the horizon
is a clouded
empty
white

Footsteps taken
now sink into the
darkened blue
the swollen silence
lusting after little pinpricks
of light
filtering through the
sodden sieve

A life
looms there
in the green
sonorous weeds
wailing softly in
the undercurrent,
the suspension
of
song

A world unkempt
dwelling beneath
the patterned
winds

To drift up and
gasp the naked sky
is to stand in the salt and
let the sun bead weak gray
into your eyes

adrift
on the whispering spoon
of the earth.

The Observing of Nothing

We rose early to see the sun rise.

A couple of bikes piled

against the fence on a one-way

A few helmets strewn

like goat skulls in the desert

A jacket with sleeves trailing

like the flag of a war-torn country.

We filed in silence down the gravel, and hung tightly

to the strip of exposed shoulder

of the mountain,

morning eyes unfixed

by undulating fog.

There was evergreen and pine

to seclude us from the road,

but their leaves lay waste

in the dampened overcast–without green–

but dimmed to the worn copper

of an abandoned penny

left out in the rain.

We were quiet in our anticipation

as we sat like gulls

with our knees tucked in,

Facing the vast white glades of ocean

that shattered and reformed

on the face of the rocks.

We had come to see the sunrise but

the only thing that blew light

into the lungs of day

was fog,

Which shrouded the world

in a surreal mask

of fine white paper and ash.

The horizon was blended

into the lost line of the ocean;

I felt the cold irony as

we stood and observed

no rise of day or sun itself;

But the same emptiness that had encompassed our eyes

not moments before

as we lay dreaming.

Out beyond the blurred sheets of

chalky-white residue,

there lay a sun

ablaze

in its emergence.

And here we sat, before its pale abashed frame,

without the eyes

to see past

and glimpse

 sweet morning fire.

The Wizard

Something I worked on today. Forgive me for all the spelling mistakes.

CHAPTER ONE: THE DARK FIGURE

He stood on the corner. The wind was thin and sharp and it blew through him, leaving frost inside him. The snow was in thick slosh below his feet and he shifted from one foot to the other, trying to keep them dry. The whole business was completely in vain but he needed some sort of movement to keep him going.

He had waited for exactly seven minutes. Now seven minutes can be passed fairly quickly; such as, when one is eating dinner. One hardly has to count the minutes aloud while food is being ingested, for we all know that would end terribly and be frightfully irritating.

But for Felix, the minutes had been an eternity. The minutes had unravelled themselves and laid themselves leisurely across the street corner. The wind wasn’t getting any warmer and the snow wasn’t getting any dryer, and Felix began to feel a bit desperate. I should just keep going, he thought to himself worriedly as he checked his watch, adjusting the leather strap for the thousandth time around his wrist.

Suddenly, something caught his eye. A strange figure, unlike the other rushing people in the market square, was walking slowly and solemnly across the opposite street. He wore a long dark coat and a hat that stooped down across his face. In the darkening light, it was impossible to see just whom this figure was. Felix watched him slowly cross the street, keeping a wary eye on his pocketed hands. Felix was paying so much attention to what could possibly be in those trench coat pockets that when he looked up, the figure was staring right at him.

Felix gulped and looked hurriedly away from the man. But he couldn’t help looking tentatively back up, and he could see the shadow of a man walking steadily towards him. Felix looked around wildly for some sort of elegant escape, but he stayed put. This could be the man I’m looking for, he thought, and wished his fear away. The man stopped directly in front of him.

“Felix Clemmons?” the man said. His voice was gruff, and it rubbed against Felix’s ears liked weathered sandpaper. The hat was titled slightly upward now, and Felix could make out the barest details of the man’s face. His face was covered with dark brown whiskers and stubble. His nose was rather like a very small and particularly shaped eggplant.

“Yes, that’s me.” Felix answered nervously.

“State your purpose.”

“I need the book so I can talk to that…mutual friend of ours,” Felix said. He gulped again, and fingered the leather wristband of his watch.

“Which mutual friend?” the man growled.

“The old man one!” Felix squeaked.

The man did not say anything. He stood there, contemplating Felix for a moment. Then he reached into the never-ending depths of his pocket and pulled out a brown paper bag. The bag had not been treated well. Its skin was twisted and curled and wrinkled in every way possible, and it had been splashed with a variety of different muddy snow puddles.

“Is…is that it?” Felix asked, his hand hovering before the bag, not quite touching it.

“Yes! Take it quickly. Nobody must see this.”

Felix took the bag, shivered, and then shoved it underneath his coat.

“Thank you.” he said, nodding his head in show of his gratitude.

“Don’t thank me. Look. If anyone sees the content of the bag except our little mutual friend—” he stopped to give a sloppy, lopsided grin that looked terribly menacing, then adjusted his voice into a whisper; “–then you have managed to destroy everything we’ve ever worked for.”

“Message understood.” Felix felt the bag grow considerably heavier. Not because the contents had suddenly gained weight, but because he could feel the fingertips of responsibility clinging on to it. He paused to adjust it more securely under his arm. He turned his head again the man but he had already turned his back and started walking away into the snow that had started to circle down upon the pavement.

With no hesitation, Felix whipped himself around and continued down the alley way.