Victorian Aegis 4

The horses began to run, driving into the open patches within the crowd.  Those on foot feel back fearing being trampled under hoof, other coachmen started shouts that feel short.  Seeing the mad devil Jack at the lash halted there words and breath.  Wonder and fear gripped the street.


Johansen struggled to stay top the coach with the Jack carving a crazy course that often battered into coaches and building alike.  The Swede grabbed at the devils arm but it recoiled and hissed finally becoming aware of the big man.  A knife flashed out, slashing wildly at Johansen.  He fell back grasping for anything that would keep him atop the coach. 


Fragonard did his best to follow on foot cutting through the retreating crowd while keeping his eyes on the conflict on the cab.  His attention locked on the devil he batter full into another struggle on the street.  Fragonard gasped "But How", his arms bracing the space in between himself and the devil; now on foot.  His eyes falling back to the cab, yes it was there as well.  "There are two?"

Victorian Aegis 3

Honoria's cab slowed drawing her ire. "Driver proceed!" she called out annoyed but there was no movement. "Lady, the street it is stopped." replied the groom wary of her ill mood.  Lady Algor insisted on impecable service or her temperment changed to intolerable. "Then make them move."


The horses began to rear as a pair of men raced across the street.  The large man show a glance backwards.  His steps slowed after crossing, but his fellow wheeled backwards upending them both.  There pursueor now emerged from the very alleyway they raced toward.  His face a horror mask still cackling as he bounded over the two.


In seconds the groom was thrown from the cab by the devil.  It began at the reign, lashing the horses forward.  Honoria cried out for help which boolstered the large man's humors to rage.  Grasping at the coach as the horses began to run he felt himself in motion.  Strong arms pulled his big body to met the devil in the coachman's seat.

Victorian Aegis 2

The pair remained silent approaching a recently covered paupers grave.  Fragonard's eyes shot about, as whispers crept to his ears from all directions.  At times he wondered if his life had brought him too close to the dead or if chemicals had left their mark on his mind.  Johansen looked at him confused, wondering at direction a moment before the doctor pushed on.  Their movement halting from tree to tree measured and fearful.  Fragonard revealed a bundle of tools hidden near a tree trunk.  Passing a shovel to the Swede and igniting a lantern, the doctor motioned forward.


Life had fallen hard since France for the doctor.  Where he once maintained an obscure but respected medical museum he now procured specimens for others.  His clothes once fashionable where now archaic and threadbare.  Still this path allowed for further understanding of his craft, which was his utmost concern.


Johansens' shovel cut the earth again and again.  The big man quickly progressed at the task, though there were sounds that disturbed him ;odd snaps and scampering worrying.  His spade drove deeply into the ground when a cackle erupted behind them.  Fragonard wheeled the lantern to see who had set upon them, thou he saw he did not understand.  Was it a man, a devil conjured from his mind?  Wings Black bounded from the dark, and that hideous face. Johansen push his shovel at the thing shrinking back. 


It menaced them a moment before it belched sickly emerald flames at the men who fled in headlong fear. Its maniac laugh haunting their retreat.  They passed through a hole in the churchyard gate still in full sprint.  Johansen cast his eyes back to see it bound, as if spring heeled, fully over the gate.

Victorian Aegis 1

Chill grew from the fog, strength to strength a'gainst faces weary.  Opaque air beget ice to metals and strange swelling to the wooden doors.  Fragonard stalked about a fire waiting for the whaler.  He was uncertain of the evening.  Would the man hold true to the commitment and would their work complete undisturbed.


The doctor clad himself dark, hoping to not be seen and if so not recognized.  The whaler Johansen was instructed to be similarly attired.  The nights work, illegal, carried a capital punishment.  Removal of corpses from the grave was a lucrative endevor but Fragonards need was for research.  Johansens conscent was strictly a financial matter.


The night drawing dark about the city streets the doctor began to consider abandoning the work.  Though he troubled himself to hide shovels in a nearby crypt, which would require retreaval.  Soon though he heard queer sounds of paddling from the river.  The termination came with steps and drips from a nearby docking.  The huge Swede soon emerged from the dark, watery clothing plastered to his frame.

Road Incantations 8

Sleep wouldn't come and I don't remember the day that followed, but dark hours later were on the road.  There was some work with Ben Lommond that burned away my time.  Downward hills rushed always to San Jose and past the shadows of my youth.  Idlewild and Redwood Estates and the death of a strange kid my cousins knew.  I could only push the thoughts away and strive for distance.  The miles to put it back together or discard if it falls apart.

I pulled off and worked the back ways for Hillsdale.  Here stores remained unchained as if determined and holding fast.  Time moved on but they didn't.  Video stores and poster shops would have left long ago, anywhere but here.  Lights burned too bright for this late at night but I struggled inward.  Down the darker rows hidden away under stairs and blind closets to the esoteric realms of foreign horror and bad fantasy films. 

Road Incantations 7

Some roads run over with death, that was eighty five.   Insects along the highway call forth a funeral pall inviting forth the fragments of my pain.  Some ligament or needle fished through my vein, rising through my meat, inward and chemical.  Miles might get me away if I could reconnect with streets bundled up with wonder.  I pointed myself for the roots of Umanhum and pushed on faster.  With Wednesday the streets we all alone or with those that didn't care.  Cut grass met the car passing by Leigh.  Hills echoed with nectar and brass from deep within their hearts.   Harwood and Almond blossom flooded for from memory.  Soon I found myself out near Calero and wondered how.  I don't always understand I am only the driver.

Road Incantations 6

Finally up walking, I wandered into a dark median lane.  Far off sprinklers turned the night bountiful and waiting.  I tore open the little paper pouch and cast seeds into the over brush.  I prayed for the valleys yield of old the canneries and vast orchards; return!  Futile I knew but an offering for a good season.  Some car drove past lights and wonder peering on me, this all seemed insane I am sure. No one imagined about lone cars at night but someone walking was never anonymous.  Not late at night nor on streets nobody called home.  My seat and engine obscured welcome and with a turn or two I was no one that needed any thought.

Road Incantations 5

Too tired for it, down the dark ways I struggled with the hills.  On Calavaras and the freeway I was silent.  This road was change and few held any power over it. Weak I would have been subsumed and altered so I took no part.  I was heading for the small old roads the valley forgot.  A Ferry Morse was a fragment few knew bore down to our roots.  Born with the past valley before Shockley and Noyce; the hearts delight of old.  Much rested on five hundred feet of road.

I could smell spring bloom up nearing, it was well.  I stopped in some business park and waited, windows down alive with sound.  I hated getting out for my weight.  I am fat, not fat like you may be , fat that spoken of serious problems rooting around the soul.  Most of us were broken, few found the art of the road without flaw or need.

Road Incantations 4

My youth was why I needed these streets.  Working and reworking the connections so memories wouldn't descend away.  Keeping the communal history so other charmed lives remain unhindered.  Continue the drizzle of melancholy for those that remain.  Once whole enough to travel the car pushed on.

East and up. Knights bridge passed then Shaffer onto Ruskin; with the long climb of Sierra til the city sprawled below. I pass couples a lower climbs all entwined.  I force up and up into solitude until I am unseen.  Then its waiting.  It's coming on an hour, then can hear the motor, it's struggling.  He pulls of a helmet and saddles off the bike.  It's gestures and somatic from here.  Covered faces and splayed thumbs, prayers and forward thought. Components of burning sage and bottled water thrown out to the wind.  An hours work the city safe once more, no falling sky ways, fire and flood pushed back a week more.

Road Incantations 3

Parking lots always in change met my headlights.  Pulling behind an ethnic store I waddled out; falling down cross legs to the curb.  I lit up a pall mall and set it still burning just to my side. "Sacra Atelier". The match burst, with the same sulfur from Alum Rock Park, in my hand. Another brand growing bright. "Sapientibus satis".  A third burned "Melapibus."  Smashing down my foot every thing ground out and I slumped into my seat.  San Jose was soon; ringing and warm, fraternal embrace.  Some moments by my old house before the nights work returned.

Road Incantations 2

This was a store of my youth, tucked away and unchanging.  Memories and energy dowsed up with the connections of formative friendships.  Houses called home by friends reminded me of change that under lied and unsettled.  Coming here was ritual even deeper than that of the road.  The raw vitae gurgled in between the hostess snack cakes and five cent gum that still unsold since adolescence.  With wise eyes one could see the ambrosia crusted around a corner that held the game cabinets long ago. 

The eyes of teens haunting the storefront were mundane, though one looked to be looking.  Those inside were the magi of the road, that much was plain.  Somehow we knew our own.  Nods told each there was no conflict to occur.  The Seven Eleven was most oft safe, almost holy ground.  Other watering holes could be contentious but this was a night camp one found for safety.  I would pay my ration with coins of fallen realms.

Road Incantations 1

Marsh was dark and expired, with the evil things done.  White was long with slow words to bind down the ghosts to the land forever reworked.  Sierra required burning sage.  El Camino was the long spine of through the valley asking for peace in Ohlone and Pomo.  Hicks was home and the incantations stopped for the night with everything made right.

The old road to Alum Rock assaulted the traveler and told of years lost to us.  Here I gave offering for others memory and bespoke the intoned tales to continue their dreams.  Halt the car and drink down the sulfur springs.  Long ancestral calls to maintain the land amid the chaotic eons.  Then Along I would drive down Piedmont and unwork the knots left along the road.  At the end the ley lines roads converged seeping with the mana of seven eleven.

Happiness

coming in the morning with pain of war
my hearts beating loud in my sores

My dogs are sounding
But im not going to the door

There is no you and me anymore
lets wash away everything before

I'll walk away and lose my voice
never to say a word evermore
Can't feel my fingers
because of pills and steal
can't feel my fingers
or they're burning in the rain

keep talking I hear you
Even though I shut the door

walking across the mountains
I hear and want to hear more

Somewhat sick this morning
hearts beating in my sore

Can't feel my fingers
because of pills and steal
can't feel my fingers
or they're burning in the rain

grey skin in the mirror
touching hurts like its torn

Can't feel my fingers

Never silent my muse

I didn't think I would stick
to this thing so long,
but I know the stories come together
better with you there. 

I wouldn't be lost to the country
if the sunset didn't hang so well. 
I wouldn't need to be lost
if I didn't need be undone. 

I would be at home
in everything I own. 
I would make peace
if I was peaceful.

Lets cut the car off
and walk on home.
It's not too late
I don't want to be alone

Sunset hangs in the country
Pink and broken blue
each made for the other
another day made anew.

I Keep Forgetting

In the far flung veils of autumn is where my home decays.  Time and gravity chewing at the structures that once held me safe.  I am a wing and undone with the winter rain. Unsettled and thrown to flight.  Come to lands forgotten by light.  Give me peace and love but regret and guilt are laid at my door.  How am I to repair when you choose to rush headlong into the fray.  Away through the summer is where I will stay.

Not One of Us

I miss my old haunts and I miss my youth.  I miss the dilemmas of driving to boulder creek or finding a gas station along five. I miss memories rising up with roads near my old homes.  I miss poor friends who never showed up when we needed them.  I miss my marginal successes I've turned into triumphs in retelling.  I miss tables where I first said I love you and parking lot fights.  I miss needing to escape because we escaped.  I miss understanding it was all too much but being too tied in to get out.  I miss sitting on the hillside waiting for the world to end, we missed it and now its time to head on home.

Magic Hour

I just want a warm day to sit under a tree with my dog, jasper.  I want to sit there and be warm and loved.  I want to look at clouds turning pink with softened light with no expectations of any more.  I want not to hope or fear some dissolution. Not worry about flesh or oil not feel acid running though my veins telling me to run.  Not want or scheme anymore.  Not even memory to feel the loss or have any imagination of cost.  Only a soft seldom wind and a broken lust for me.  Fur for my fingers a lap for my face love again eternal.

Love Hungry Man

You are nothing to me
a place in a picture
that I don't recognize
but its my favorite

you never owned me
your just the same colors
of all my lost memories
and I'd feel you missing

Not sure why I'm looking
Backward for the sunset
I'm drowning in homesick
and I guess you are home

you're future and memory
you gone whats left of me

Just a pleasant memory

Grey and far off the sky embraced yielding space from the sea and horizon. There the waters were grey and even the golden land tarnished. With the Vaulted air birds helix'd some strange interlocking pairs ascending in flight.  We were warm the windows dry moving un-interfered. Quiet was comfortable with nothing looking to be said, but for the wondering of up ahead.  It seems this should have been an anniversary or a day beyond.  A forgotten purse and special dinner the night before come to mind.

Sven the teddy was very Unwell

Sven the teddy was very unwell, he couldn't breath or play or run.  Deep inside Sven's fluff had turned brown and grey.  If not washed thrice weekly someone would toss Sven away.

Sven hated wash day, even before they were begun.  They gave him a little zipper down near his wrist.  That's were they vacuumed out his fluff to throw in the wash. With out his cotton he felt like a popped balloon.  He would wait for hours patiently to his batting to be refilled. But in a couple days it would turn dirty again.

He asked all the other animals if they could lend a little fluff, most were too scared others had a different sort of fluff.  Fluff is very different it would surprise most to know.  Some Fluff is little pellets, other just rags and Steiff bears have excelsior. Sven was made of ordinary non-premium cotton which wasn't special at all.  Any bear could add a little cotton fluff, but for bears like Sven it was the only stuff. 

His days unhappy Sven worked to get through each one.  Even the days without cleaning were uncomfortable.  His zipper snagged his fur and even being touched hurt sometimes. He hid out from the other animals, none new what to say.  He didn't like being treated different or other seeing him as sick.  Most of all he hated hurting the bear closest to him when he when for a cleaning.

After month He thought of hiding beneath the sofa or letting the dog tear him up. The Cleaners often damaged animals and one was lost every month.  Some came in confused and after a week their time was up.  Sven often wanted to walk away without his fluff but he was scared of that too.

One day he awoke with a new seem of stitching across his belly and the prickly pains of being sewn up.  He learned he had been taken to the seamstress who had packed him full with her own bag of fluff.  Then Sven wasn't a sick toy and he could play all he liked.