Refracted Neurons

It was two days on from the longest night, morning glistening  in street lamps, puddles reflecting multiple moons, glistening feathers pinned back in predatory symmetry, the metal of a pole. And because the out-of- place is my kind of awe, we stared at each other unblinking, like the time a church was being razed and a sole stained glass remained sparkling  above the tumbling dust, or when someone who never heard of you sang out your name like the light it is, trickling like sun across  the back of my neck. ************************** I was walking to the bus the other day when I saw something odd on a street sign. I’ve never had fantastic night vision, so even though it looked like an owl, I figured it was probably a piece of wood. As I walked by it, I rubbernecked like an old man watching a young woman in hot pants. If it was wood, it was wood with feathers growing out of it. Now remember, this is the city. We have

It was an office, not unlike any of the other offices around the city.  It had a kitchen with a door.  And on that door was a memo typed entirely in Comic Sans font.  “Terrible,” mumbled Vera.  She peeled the memo off the door, the paper tearing around the taped corners. A hand reached for the doorknob, then paused, “Do you have to do that like that?”  It was Lynn, and he was scowling, “At least peel the tape first so you don’t leave these dismembered corners.” He was the last person Vera wanted to catch her tearing down office correspondence.  Not only was Lynn a manager, not only was his resting expression one of perpetual disapproval, but he also made her feel as if she had eaten an entire bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans.  Her nerves buzzed, her mind sang nonsense, and guilt slapped each of her cheeks with splotches.  “But did you see the font,” Vera held up the paper, hoping her hand didn’t tremble, “What does this font say to you?” “Clown party,” he frowned, his m

It was Saturday morning and I was pulling the calash across the main thoroughfare.  The young master preferred the calash, it was fast and had a fold-away cover in case the rain stopped.  He preferred me for much the same reason, I was responsive to the reigns and quick on slippery cobbles. “Oh the way Ginny maneuvers!” he would boast to the other young men, “I’d take her over any thoroughbred.”  I feel much the same, for all a horse needs to be happy is a kind master. Anyhow, it was morning, and we were crossing the road with the clock tower.  Horses, carriages, and carts were weaving this way and that and a policeman stood in the middle, playing a song on his whistle while he danced.  A white stallion was coming towards us, pulling a brougham. If the color of him had not been enough to get my attention, his high action and rolling eyes would have.  “Is that not Miss Eloise’s carriage?” my master twisted in his seat, “She must have got a new horse. What a beauty.” I would

Fall is the end of porch swings and blackberries, a riotous end of wind-blown rain of comfort falling away in red and orange. The tendril of sorrow that sprouts in me will not grow.                            It is not the growing season. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I haven't written poetry in a while, so hopefully, this little snippet will prime the pump.  Unless the pump has frozen over, which is possible.  It's sooooooo cold here already.  

Happy Inktober, I guess.  I don't really draw a whole lot, but   Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl  inspired me to attempt the scene with the bloom cannon. I'm not 100% happy with it, but look how cute Madrigal turned out:

Source: https://pixabay.com/images/id-2354583/ ”You think he’s gonna show?” Jose yelled in Charlotte’s ear.   ”Oh, he’ll show,” Charlotte stood on her toes, straining to see above the crowd.  One hundred conversations overlapped each other in the Gold City Hall, bouncing off the walls until the vowels and consonants became a single roar.  ”You would think a mistress would at least get a better seat,” she complained to herself. ”What?” Jose leaned into her, his elbow poking her ribs. ”I said, ’You would think they’d have brought in extra seats!’” ”Yeah, but no one cares about some nobody Healers!  Look!” Jose pointed.   A woman with coiffed blonde attired in a navy pants suit strode into the front row.  ”Janice,” Charlotte thought, ”She sleeps in a separate room.” Behind Janice was a young man in a Mage school uniform, his hair cut with military precision.  ”Ugh.” Seeing the mayor’s son, Orville was always jarring to Charlotte. He was in the same year in school

Source:  https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hands-sphere-light-fingers-magic-1835994/ “What kind of magic was that?”  Orville opened his eyes.  Pain dug its claws into his chest, making every breath he drew an agony.  The sky above him was a searing blue, interrupted only by a gust of sand that rolled over him like a fog.  Choking, he tried to sit up, but unseen hands pinned him to the ground.  Unable to do anything else, he made the sign for Light with his right hand.  He was certain he would suffocate, his pulse banging in his ears, his brain screaming for air.  The wind billowed around him, stinging him with sand.  It gusted, it wafted, and then it was still.  Light filtered through the brown air from his hand.  It was only enough to illuminate the space around him, nowhere near enough to inflict damage on the unseen enemy. And still, the hands held him down. The sand swirled in the air like dust motes.  He couldn’t feel it settling, but the visible patches of sky tol

We were driving by the mall the other day when I saw it. There's a hole in the mall where the men can see it all.   "What are they doing now?" I turned around in my seat. "They're, you know, tearing it down," my husband seems unsurprised. "But there's a hole in the side of the building!  I have to go back there."  I couldn't get very close to the construction for obvious reasons, but I did get a couple of shots over the fence of a crane tearing the ever-loving capitalism out of the store. Inside they extended the wall, and now there's a small passageway through the center guarded at either end by construction workers. The empty center of the mall, ready for demolition. Even more shops seem to be empty than last time I was here.  The RAM and Bergmans were empty save employees hauling equipment out of the shops. This used to be Bergman's Since there wasn't much new I could see, I drove around the

Now I know people love stories of dead or dying malls, I mean, I do too.  Empty institutional architecture puts the honey on my peanut butter toast.  But there's a difference between stores fleeing a mall because there are no patrons and stores fleeing a mall because someone’s gonna drop an ice rink on it. And that, my friend, is the story of Northgate Mall. The white space is exactly that; empty. I went there last week to eat belt sushi and made a disquieting discovery: The center of the mall has been walled off.  The food court end of the mall was surprisingly busy for a Friday mid-day, but the other end was pretty dead.  Oddly, there was at least one mall-walker and I could not figure out for the life of me how she was going to walk the mall.  Jump over the barrier and power walk through the vacant center?  Or maybe she was gonna do what I did, and pop in different entrances whack-a-mole style until she found something other than a wall. I wasn't kidding abo

Photo by Manel Torralba “That’s the wrong way to do that,” Grimmett put his hand over Jade’s, then drew it back, “Are you wearing gloves?”  The other students didn’t look up from their workbenches, but their movements seemed to slow as they eavesdropped. Glass work was too dicey to stop, one hesitation and hours of work could shatter. Jade looked at the malformed bead on her mandrel. She, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. Setting the mandrel on the graphite benchtop, she slid her hands out of the gloves, “I really don’t want to get burned.”  “If you let your fear dictate what you do as a lampworker, you will never improve,” Grimmett raised his voice so the whole class could hear over the hiss of their torches. “If you continue to work in glass, you will at some point get burned,” he pulled down on the neck of his shirt, exposing the top of a scar, a patch of skin melted and discolored by heat.  Ignoring him, Jade rapped her mandrel on the benchtop until the bead

Yellow jacket makes them sound like the gentlemen of wasps, as if they buzz around in little top hats, waving miniature canes.  These wasps are no gentlemen. Honestly, we've had them around our yard for years.  We have flowers blooming from spring until fall, and with that comes bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.  They usually buzz us when we're eating outside, completely unaffected by the citronella candle. A butterfly on our hydrangea tree Then I stepped in their nest.  I was trying to trim a blackberry bush that was growing in an ever-expanding patch of Saint John's Wort.  I hate doing this because I can't see where I'm putting my feet, and in this case, one of my legs went straight down into a hole. "That's weird," I said, pulling my leg out. "What's weird?" asked my son.  He and his sister were supposed to be playing in the backyard, but for some reason watching me do yard work was more exciting.  It was about to ge

Image by  congerdesign  from  Pixabay Dearthart Justice was in the kitchen, scapular smeared with flour.   “Hot in here,” Dearthart Eden pulled lir tunic away from lir chest. “You don’t have to be in here,” Justice worked the rolling pin, muscles bunching in lir arms. “Yes, but I wanted to talk to you about something that has been troubling me,” Eden leaned against the wooden counter. “Oh, not you too,” Justice swiped a sleeve across lir forehead, leaving a streak of white, “If one more person leaves the Deharthood to marry, I shall be forced to use miniature bread pans.” Eden laughed, “No, it’s not that.  It all started with my desk. You know how it faces the window?  I get so distracted watching the squirrels swirl around the tree like dancers, or sometimes there’d be a bird with a twig in its mouth . . .” “Not to mention that fool of a Dearthart that always waves at you from the path,” Justice eased the rectangle of dough off the counter. “Yes, we