she stood there stoic and still as a river rock cairn at the crossroads bus stop every afternoon alone save for her reluctant shadow that always seemed to pull away from her clawing at the gravel to unpin itself from this dirty-faced girl with willow whip arms and a mangled knot of corn silk hair
she stood there by my grandfather’s mailbox with the shot-up targets and broken beer bottles glinting dully in the weeds of the four o’clock sun like dusty brown cataracts and waited for someone who never arrived staring soundlessly as the folding school bus door juddered shut and exhaust fumes enfolded her in a hydrocarbon miasma
she stood there in her too-big ratty plaid jumper of indeterminate hue and mismatched sneakers and scab-caked knees rooted to the ground like some obscure totem some miniature monolith weather-worn eroded her features smoothed by the passage of eons at this nowhere bus stop somewhere east of benignancy paused between moments stranded between the dots of the ellipsis…
she stood there as we piled off the bus each day a mass of larval humanity gummed together in sweaty profusion and exquisite ignorance and ran past her down red dirt roads that sliced through cheat grass and junipers sage and pines kicking up dust in our manic wakes a mindless stampede of vacuous hubris and nascent dark desires our souls’ eyes shuttered against grace and mercy our young hearts already blackened by vainglory we perceived her incuriously in our periphery discerned her absently incidentally our puerile minds negating her ripping her brusquely from the cloth of our reality
she stood there waiting as the cracks in the world began to show arrivals departures childhood’s horrors comings and goings day and night week after month after year after generation and I recalled her vaguely a tenuous mirage on the distant silver horizon of youth and my children and their children spoke cryptically of the uncanny silent girl at the bus stop until her novelty wore off and she disappeared from their collective consciousness as their own childhoods unwound in a chaotic blur
and the cracks widened and deepened and the world spun slowly to a stop
she stood there stoic and still as a river rock cairn in the withering gloaming at the end of time where no bus had stopped for millennia where the damned no longer gamboled and cavorted where sepulchral silence clung shroud-like to the bones of the earth waiting for someone no one anyone and I approached her my back bent with age my gait halting my old man’s eyes dim and rheumy my breath a rasping wheeze and she looked at me with pallid marbled eyes and I recognized her at last and I sensed the world sigh and I took her cold, ashen hand as the final sunset faded and I waited with her
Hey, folks. I was delightfully surprised when my recent poem “From Tsukiko, While Watching the Moon” was reviewed by Adam Fenner. Adam is a gifted novelist and poet, and his poetry reviews are both keenly insightful and enlightening. I was honored to discover Adam had written an in-depth, spot-on analysis of my poem and I thought I’d share a link to his review on his wonderful blog for those of you who would like to check it out. Take some time and explore his work while you’re there. He’s a formidably talented writer.
An exciting update—After Rain Skies: The Global Anthology, curated by Michelle Ayon Navajas, continues its remarkable run of success, reaching #1 best-seller status in multiple categories for both its Kindle and paperback editions.
From the book:
“After Rain Skies: The Global Anthology is the third installment in the After Rain Skies series, bringing together writers, poets, and storytellers from around the world to speak out against all forms of abuse and violence. Each poem and prose piece is either a personal story or one that inspired the writer—a voice raised in solidarity with those who have endured hardship. These are raw, real stories of resilience, courage, and the search for light after darkness, told through powerful prose and poetry.” – Michelle Ayon Navajas, Curator
Hello, friends. Today I’d like to share one dear friend’s wonderful review of another dear friend’s amazing novel. These two authors are pillars in our writing community, and it’s my pleasure to highlight both of them here. I hope you enjoy Joni Caggiano’s review of Diana Wallace Peach’s new book, Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver.…..
D. Wallace Peach has crafted a prologue in an exquisitely breathtaking setting– a winter forest marked by the harshness of an extreme mix of challenges. She weaves an enchanting tale rich with every imaginable metaphor and color. With a thrilling introduction to various creatures we will come to know throughout the chapters, Peach triumphantly guides us to each new page in this captivating adventure.
We also quickly realize that humans struggle to feed their families during what seems to be an interminably long winter. We learn that some creatures in the woods are dangerous and exist on an island where a Winter King resides. What we understand to be the beginning of the book may signify the dissolution of the human world as they know it. The hunters commit an unforgivable mistake, and their desperate actions will lead to severe consequences. With this information, we delve into the ethereal yet fragile world that a young woman must learn to navigate. She is tasked with weaving the seasons of their world onto her tapestry as we follow her through twists and enchantments that only the wildest imagination could conjure.
As lovers of nature’s seasons, all creatures, and the immeasurable beauty that the living world brings to all our lives, we often held our breath during the reading of Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver. (I buddy read this book with my husband, which was our treat at the end of the day.)
The main character is “The Seasons’ Weaver,” who is called Erith. Everything about Erith was remarkable. I loved the coziness of her woodsy abode and the visionary creatures that lived with her. She was half charmed and half human. Within Erith’s force of personality, I saw a lot of myself. Much of what made her such a lovable, captivating, and disarming character was, in many ways, the challenges we all deal with in life. Many unanswered questions about what happened to her and her family and the great expectations inflicted upon such a young woman made her anxious, untrusting, and often unsure of herself. I found a lot of today’s world in this captivating book.
Throughout the chapters, we meet extraordinary characters, some of whom we come to adore, but many of whom we know are foreshadowing. The entirety of the book is written imbued with mystical and dangerous quests. D. Wallace Peach’s ability to write with such ease and flow, with her formidable use of creative description in each sentence, is particularly noteworthy. Her imagination is found while building a world that is both in trouble and one in which the protagonist, Erith, has many secrets to which she is not privy.
As a poet who does not often read fantasy, I found a considerable amount to be learned from reading this genre if you find a writer with a vision that lights a spark on every page. I will quote a few lines to show you an example of D. Wallace Peach’s sensational descriptive vein of writing.
“Gynnessett’s corona of buttercup curls bounced below a circlet of golden pansies. Her silk apparel boasted a garden of embroidered irises, and despite the wintery weather, living flowers trimmed her neckline and the hem of her ruffled skirt. She was as light as sunshine, as mercurial as a butterfly, and when she passed by me, the scent of lilacs lingered in the air. I wondered if she tucked wings beneath her finery.”
Peach, D. Wallace. Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver (p. 16). (Function). Kindle Edition.”
“Wind clattered through the bare branches. Twigs chafed like eager fingers. A banshee swept into the clearing and whipped the falling snow into funnels that raced into the blue fire and spat cold sparks at the sky. Nelithi drifted from the evergreens, a phantom spirit of murder and mercy, crystal irises peering at me above a seductive smile.”
Peach, D. Wallace. Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver (p. 177). (Function). Kindle Edition.
“Your true strength lies here.” He rested two fingertips on my temple and then tucked a stray hair from my face with a touch as light as a galiwhig’s wings, the gesture so tender I leaned into his hand. “Your magic far exceeds the limited illusions of the charmed. You must believe it, welcome it.”
Peach, D. Wallace. Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver (p. 250). (Function). Kindle Edition.
The last quote is one from a particularly spectacular character in every way. A member of the charmed. Even though many possess staggering powers, one such person remains a true gentleman in every sense. He is a man every woman would love to know who holds her heart most valuable, even more than life itself. A tender romance added to the tension and fear felt while reading each time they headed into the night.
There has to be a hero in every story, and in this book, I saw a community of heroes in the end—people who wanted to conduct themselves morally. This was another inducement to my sheer delight in reading this book. An individual with an overwhelming sense of humanity wrapped this enthralling story with every aspect of the challenges one eventually encounters.
This book is a gift to those who love nature and find its very fabric something we need in which to exist – oh wait, we do, don’t we! D. Wallace Peach is a treasure to read, and if you are a writer of poetry or prose you may learn a lot while enjoying every page. I know I did.
At the end of the book is a poem that will touch your heart and speak to your soul through the visuals of the earth’s beauty and riches. The author chose to end with a poem called “Wisdom” by a brilliant poet, Michael Utley. I don’t think she could have picked anything that would have summed up this fantastical journey to preserve the earth’s natural bounty than by listening to the love of nature pour out so splendidly by Michael Utley.
I highly recommend Tale of the Seasons’ Weaver. I can honestly say I enjoyed every page and appreciate the love of nature the author herself must cherish.
Hey, friends. I’m excited to let you know one of my nature photography images titled “Rock, Sheep Mountain & Trout Lake” has been featured at Gobblers by Masticadores. Many thanks to Editor Manuela Timofte for choosing to share my passion for nature photography with all of you. I’m truly grateful, and I hope you enjoy seeing the natural world through my eyes.
You can view the image and its accompanying commentary here:
Leroy blew his fingers off with blasting caps he stole from some old granary and he’d chew on the blackened stumps while waiting for the school bus like some kind of hard dude like he didn’t feel a thing I hated him but I understood numbness and I knew he was dead inside knowing his little sisters were never coming back from that long-ago pile of twisted metal on the highway he was sixteen and already an old man
Ronnie was a psycho and a pusher and drove a piece of shit Chevy truck with a .30-06 in a window rack and his eyes danced with hellfire when he wasn’t shooting up crank he was shooting up mailboxes and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down and one surreal summer evening he almost killed me and I saw the face of true evil up close and personal my old man would have been proud Ronnie was already DOA and he didn’t even know it a wraith barreling down a midnight country road with Skynyrd blasting and his mind completely blown
Old Bud had a penchant for booze and young girls and enough sway with the local LEOs to look the other way when his granddaughters came to visit his self-proclaimed redneck empire collapsed one day when his black heart came a cropper and his corpulent ass gave up its ghost and its secrets no shame for the shameless his little kingdom in ruins but all those skeletons remain
my old man was an anomaly among this cretin coterie this hick menagerie his arrogant bullying earned him the moniker “little hitler” among the Leroys and Ronnies and Old Buds of this nowhere place this idyllic pastoral version of hell his NRA card-waving wife-beating chest-thumping sturm und drang racist dog and pony show approach to country life perhaps a little too much for their liking he was a laughingstock and too proud to know it hubris is a helluva drug
and one by one between shoot-outs and break-ins and meth labs and murders and suicides and all the hidden horrors birthed by the brackish hearts of men these restless ghosts have faded into oblivion only barren fields remain derelict houses rife with caustic memories and the soundless hush of the uneasy dead listen closely and steel yourself against what this silent place may tell you
my old man died alone on a busted sofa on a September farm in the middle of nowhere with a gut full of prescription drugs and a poorly scrawled note left on the kitchen table
“something went wrong in my head”
it said
he checked out without tipping the bellboy the cheap fuck remorseless to the end
and in his final act on planet earth he also killed me
closure wasn’t in his 10th grade drop-out vocabulary neither were compassion decency empathy love his lexicon was one of unfettered cruelty willful ignorance narcissistic dominance bigotry hate violence
closure? there is no closure when the bad guys get away with murder and speed outta town at midnight in black-windowed coupes with fat tires and skulls painted on the hoods glasspacks roaring tearing the world to pieces
there is no closure when the deceased can’t sleep and bones rattle restlessly in coffins and closets and all you can see on the insides of your eyelids is the haggard face of a seven-year-old kid staring back at you
so tell me do you know what it’s like to be a ghost? to lurk in sunless corners among dust motes and spider webs and choke on the cloying darkness that surrounds you permeates you to see horrors but never be seen to know fey secrets that should never be known to hear with deafened ears silent whisperings best left unheard do you?
I’ve been gone a long time my father’s smudged and bloody fingerprints all over my cheap headstone the desiccated yellow turf of my plot beaten to dust beneath his boot prints isn’t it funny how the dead persist? you’d almost think he mourned my passing if it weren’t for his soft laughter that sounds more like the cries of jackals
sometimes in the wan hours when the world is asleep and all is quiet I push through the sod and float on night breezes navigating by starlight and moonbeams among the crooked marble crosses and faded plastic flowers of lost souls and settle down on cold dewy grass and reach out tentatively toward my headstone and weep for that seven-year-old kid who never had a chance that child who died and was reincarnated as his mother’s protector his father’s enemy his fate written in the blood of the wound he inflicted on his father’s forehead the scar that remained until the old man killed himself alone on a busted sofa on a September farm in the middle of nowhere
After Rain Skies: The Global Anthology, curated by internationally acclaimed best-selling author Michelle Ayon Navajas, has been released and is now available in both paperback and Kindle versions. This profoundly important and deeply moving collection of poetry and prose deals with the horrors of violence and abuse. As Michelle states:
“Each poem and prose piece is either a personal story or one that inspired the writer–a voice raised in solidarity with those who have endured hardship. These are raw, real stories of resilience, courage, and the search for light after darkness…”
Already an Amazon #1 best-seller in multiple categories, this collection is a must-have for anyone who has experienced violence and abuse, or knows someone who has been a victim. Michelle’s courage and tireless advocacy shine throughout this book.
I have waited long enough among midnight forests and somnolent bamboo groves the furtive whispers of pensive yurei a forlorn supplication to dissolve further into the rayless world of lost souls to seek the sleep of bōkyaku
cloistered among susurrating reeds I bathe my feet in Sanzu’s nocturnal tears adorned in fragrant willow shadows as koi drowse in the depths of dreams and kitsune slink clandestinely their night-thoughts unfathomable
the red footbridge dun and sullen in this half-light recedes into nothingness an abandoned relic leading to nowhere its purpose forgotten another ghost in this world of ghosts
beyond the bridge emptiness
somewhere out there lies a buried memory the bones of a life once lived once lost forever regretted a recollection unknown to all but mindless breeze and insentient earth
above insensate stars spin upon eternal axes their astral trajectories a testament to futility their presence neither proof nor denial of divinity alignment retrogradation degradation collapse blackness silence eternity in the blink of an eye
oh, but you, arrogant moon gōman’na tsuki skulking through the trees your cold light casting you as villainous your spectral aria a surreptitious siren-song I must resist oh, moon your dubious countenance burned into my soul your serrated sickle’s jagged tracks still scarred across my pallid wrists
you don’t know me, moon in your hubris you assume all things in your haughtiness you presume to decide the fates of men your judgments surpassing Enma’s in their brackish cruelty your domain the darkness and all who dwell within you of many faces and the tongues of serpents beguiler of hearts and minds you don’t know me, moon
but I know you
you named me Tsukiko birthed me in the gloom of obscurity flung me upon Fuji’s flanks and fled moon-child daughter of Tsuki I have watched you all my life from afar I contemplated your shifting phases your covert risings and fallings your feckless betrayals your eldritch gleam
and I waited for acknowledgment for recognition for the simple pleasure of moon-dapples on lotus ponds and still I wait
you don’t know me, moon and you never shall for now I embrace my fate and begin my journey into the tenebrous aether of oblivion no more shall I hope for that which you cannot give no more shall my tears blind me to the truth no more shall my dead heart ache from your rejection
Hey, folks. I’d like to let you know my poem “A Summer’s Field in Winter” has been published at India & Masticadores. Many thanks to Editor Abhilash Fraizer and his team for the opportunity to share my writing with their readers. I truly appreciate it.
“let us sift through summer’s solemn ashes let us scavenge rusted hopes from twisted hulks of yesterdays amid the swelter and the din of frigid silence as crows circle
this broad swath the acreage of sorrow garden of the gods whose feckless mewling echoes ‘cross the eons and the seasons crumble into dust as autumn gives up her ghost…”
Also, please consider following and subscribing to India & Masticadores, where you’ll find unique voices and captivating topics to spur your imagination.
Silent Pariah 