Mirror, Mirror.

 

Some ideas are undercurrents in our collective unconscious.

Like an underground river we all slip-and-slide through while we dream our days away.  Like The Goonies.  It's always (all of) our time, down here.

These ideas seem to coalesce at certain times, and they endure because they were there all along.

Archetypal figures in fairy tales are such ideas.

I present to you a lovable and dark little sea-urchin of a fairy tale.

Offering #2

"Fairest in the Land", by Catherine Krahe, Ideomancer  

Excerpt: (Click the story title for the full length story)

"After dinner, Gretl starts the fire; she likes to watch things burn. The rest of them know not to bother her but sit, talking, sewing, sharpening knives. All in a circle, each more beautiful than the last, the way leopards are beautiful, or the very best swords."

A slight change of direction.

 
After my first few posts, a couple things are clear:

1.  I underestimated how addictive blogging is.

2.  Everyone who has visited my runt of a beginner's attempt at blogging has made me appreciate the human race more than before.

This with only a week's experience, and with a blog smaller than most.  It has been eye-opening to say the least!  I've learned so much from blogs that I get to from my comments - from new cars and music, to beautiful photography and backgrounds, to enlightening science articles and dreams.  I am humbled by the internet, and by the sheer coolness of those who have visited me so far.

So while the paint is still wet in my shoebox-sized blog cabin, I want to shift things to bring content that more people will enjoy more often.

Because hey, no one - not even me - wants to read what I churn out all the time.

From now on I will be sharing links to web publication of fiction and poetry, an excerpt from said link, and a small review from me.  I'll still put out my own stuff, every other post or so.  Also, these links will not have linkbucks or any other advertising between you and the content.

Offering #1

"What Comes of Darkness," poem by Langston Kerman

Excerpt (click the poem title for the full length poem):

My biggest fear:
walking into a silent black room
flipping a switch & finding
someone staring back at me

Langston Kerman is clearly a gifted poet.  With this short poem he opens up your subconscious, calls up your childhood, and flashes chilling sense-memories through your mind with ease.  He then pushes all of that into the present and future.  With a kind of nostalgic sadness that many writers would fumble, he gets it all right.

Someone needs to write the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Seven Seas.

Today I was thinking, daydreaming perhaps, about escaping across oceans.

I've no idea how to do it, so someone needs to write a guide.  

Boatsurfing.com?

I don't want to be a stowaway, I just want to pay my way to exotic locales with honest labor.  Like deckscrubbing. Or whatever it is that boats need done to them.  I'm not imagining a sexy boat party, mind you - just hearty voyages where my labor is my ticket.

So that's a good way to introduce myself as any.  As Steve mentioned, I really should slow down and say hello.


Well, hello.  My name is Aaron.  My mind wanders and I have an overactive imagination.


Most of my scrawling is fiction in the fantasy/science fiction cubbyhole.  I like to write more than anything else, so that's what this blog is about.  The majority of what I write has some anchor in nature, hidden or plain.  That's vague, but if you read the poem I posted it is about both hidden and plain natures.  If you read my short story below that, same sort of theme.

Keeping this short and sweet! I just have to say something about the blog itself and the people who read this and my other stuff.  THANK YOU.  From the bottom of my wee-scotty of a heart.  I will follow each one of you who has shown me that kindness, and I'll make sure I check out all your blog has to offer.  In that vein, I plan on keeping my followings contained for a while at least, so I can really pay attention to what you have to say too.  Rest assured though, I will visit each of my followers at least once per day, and check out anything new or re-check out old things.

Now a little poem (really little this time) to stay consistent with my theme.  I wrote this the last time I was in Italy.  I was staying in a building that was once a 12th century monastery, with floors warped from centuries of monkish foot-traffic. I was staring at the ceiling above my bed, which had the names of monks etched into it, when this popped into my mind.

The tree will lean

And it will fall

Or it will be cut

And so will we all

Some quick poetry.

Wrote this when I got in my car after working on a Saturday.  I just kind of sat there and let the cars and people wash around me, and jotted this down - here it is unedited.  I'll stick to short stories usually, I promise.

Oh and before that mess, here's a link to my favorite publication to peruse until my perusers are sore:

The 13th Warrior Review 

We're just people, or so I am told
and we think the same about every ocean wave
a glance, and - "oh, they're just waves."
when they crash we might remark on their size or sound
a wave is just a wave, wherever found
Or, is it but a false lid?
An aqueous skin
start to stop, shoved and caressed, shaped by the wind
below, in the dancing light do turtles and whales talk
shrimp and sharks, and other strangers to the air above
we may catch a glimpse, but rarely
of these other lives, languages, memories
if we cast one brilliant beam through just one wave
follow it from innocent ripple to handsome swell
from top to bottom, we'd know a new symphony
notes of exotic fishes and glowing jellies, buried bones and gold
in the deeps, secret vents seed blind nightmares
unexpected shallows, the autumn of coral hints the end
Rushing, bubbles, shocking collapse

flattened to an outline in the sand
I surely know it soaks back to feed another
else I might cry; journey's end closed my window with a bang
but now the lid is open
the sky, the sun, the wave - just a wave
invisible elemental skin, curtain to an opera
We're just people, or so I am told

First Post - Veni.

This kind of feels like shouting to an empty room right now, so I'll keep it brief.  This is my first post, and I'd like it to set a precedent.  I'll be using this blog as a way to get my writing out in the world, to get some interested fans perhaps, and hopefully some good critics as well.  I'll often be posting story fragments, to see if there is interest, and to gauge where my direction should be.

For my first post though, I choose... why, the first short story I ever wrote.  It may not be the best way to say hello to the intertubes, but it seems like a logical starting point.

Enjoy.

The Lastborn

     Droi sat in the rain with the mountain.  Neither spoke.  Droi squinted to avoid the big drops handed down by the branches above him and kept his eyes focused on the summit.  He drank from a stream that chattered busily about its business of carrying fish and glinting bits of mountain.