Red Love

Today I Love You Best in Red

Once lover to the moon alone, younger,

I wrote poems to golden shades and longed

to be Endymion. We danced in youth

and beauty as though life, time, and hunger

held no sway. We drank and sang, and we wronged

neither each other nor others, and Truth

was our gospel, covenant in verse—rhyme

ticked, clicked, licked our wounds over life and time.

 

Now youth grudgingly leaves us to wiser

age—as though wisdom were consolation—

and what once was firm, now time’s gravity

pulls from flight to ground. And now we miser

moments between, horde our burning passion

as though it might burn out. Naïveté

was such comfort . . . Jaded love seems sallow

contrasted to young love—though it’s shallow.

 

Today is all. Today, I love you best in red

and blue, in front or back, on the couch or in bed!

Forever have we loved. This moment, all is said

and done; in this moment, you seduce and we wed.

David M Pitchford
30 May 2008

Picture: “Red Nude” by Amedeo Modigliani, 1917

This is kind of an experiment. I’m working with Ottava Rima with a quatrain chaser. Does it work? What works best? Does the rhythm break down anywhere? Where?

Ardently seeking feedback. Thanks

Question of Angels

Where Have All Our Angels Gone?

How is it we’ve come to see demons all

around us, and yet our faith in angels

died with Nietzsche? Our guardian angels

no longer visit; we’ve grown blind on tall

tales, and myth-mongers rush in to forestall

superstition any time our angels

leave signs, footprints in the sky. What angels

would befriend souls who choose to leap their fall

 

from grace? Pray it isn’t so! If dark fiends

walk among us, then spirits of light must

also. Lift up our hearts, oh anti-fiends!

Kiss our souls with hope, our demons to just

ends speed. Kiss our eyes with light heaven-cleaned,

with optimism seal our minds with stardust!

David M Pitchford
28 May 2008

Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine: Me Me Meme Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine: Me Me Meme Tuesday, May 27, 2008

GUD magazine is a good magazine! Check out their Meme and muse about your latest reads. I’ll update as cleanly as possible in a moment . . .

* What was the last story you read?

Bruce Durham’s “Valley of Bones” from The Return of the Sword. Added to a great weekend! Previous to that was a number of stories in the upcoming Summer Special from Flashing Swords Magazine – a zine of Fantasy Fiction, emphasis on action and character.

* What was the last poem you read?

I’ve been cruising the blogs listed on www.poetryblogrankings.com and rating them. Too many to note here. I tried to find my copy of GUD #0, because I recall there were a couple poems there of which I was very fond – and because one really should cleanse one’s palate with good wine now and again when tasting new wines that may not be of a par with those already of notoriety.

* What was the last comic you read?

Comic? Book or panel? Don’t recall. I tend to look at the pictures and wish I had the skill to draw more than the occasional eye or fly.

* What was the last movie you watched?

That football Disney flick with The Rock as a QB. Cute movie. I wanted to watch the TCM classic Monkey Business, but I got outvoted. Monkey Business is an hilarious pseudo-scifi comedy with Cary Grant. That guy had a wonderful career!

* What song are you listening to now? Say something about it–what it means to you, who introduced you to it, something like that.

Song? I’m auditing the audiobook version of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Later I’ll listen to an eclectic mix of music from 1940-2000 or so. Leaning toward Tori Amos for no particular reason.

* What’s your guilty-reading pleasure?

E-mail.

* Say something about the last poem you wrote!

“Something about the last poem you wrote!” Now, having said that, I did in fact write a poem this morning, which is below on my blog. I’ve been thinking of uses for Ottava Rima, but the subject of the poem was rather not conducive to endrhyme. So I just did it in octets. Had no idea what I was writing until I was done. It’s okay, I guess. I try not to judge my own poetry in the same year as the first draft . . .

* Say something about a story you’re writing now!

I’m working on a story that got out of hand and needs a complete overhaul. I’m not certain of how to go about that. It began as a short story aimed at a specific target market, but it exploded on me and now I’m working through it to get the story down so that I can go back and fix it. I’m coming up to the story climax . . . It’s somewhat erotic in a couple of scenes. Hot stuff. At least I hope it is . . .

* If you were a fictional character, who would be writing you?

I would prefer to be my own fictional character. Otherwise, put me in Stephen R. Donaldson’s very capable and poetic hands!

* Last story you recommended to someone?

The whole anthology, The Return of the Sword. Others are stories from Flashing Swords Magazine.

* And a link to your favorite magazine, because they probably need your help.

http://flashingswords.sfreader.com/titlepage.asp Ooh! Ooh! http://www.gudmagazine.com/

I don’t much play favorites, but these are two EXCELLENT magazines. Flashing Swords for your adventure fiction and poetry and great illustrations, and GUD for a more general kind of content and super illustrations as well!

* Lastly, link to a friend’s copy of this quiz!

Um . . . got it straight from the horse’s mouth . . . Link me! Link me!

Soul War

This Everlasting Battle

How many faces you have, oh Tempter!

In youth, you tempted from the yellow

wrapper of a Butterfinger bar: steal me.

How many times did I slay you? How

many times deny your suasion? How often

spit scripture in your face and race away

to safety in the chapels to pray? And yet,

you are relentless as time. Calling to me

 

from between sweet thighs, small tangles

of your nets woven in woman curls and

pungent scents of desire. I heard you

first from Her sweet sweat of desire

at seventeen—for the five years previous

it was but an abstraction of hormones,

but in that year it became a battle among

angels and demons. Every woman was

 

wanton in your lecherous accusation,

and you, Tempter, sat with me in every

moment: she is yours to take. And yet I

had fallen in with the Romantics and knew

that such was a prize to be won by ardent

deeds of heroism and some higher Love,

sanctioned only in marriage—there you caught me,

for youth has no patience, at least not mine.

 

And once that sweetness soiled my lips and

sundry parts, then no temptress was safe

from the growing inferno of my lechery!

Still, I tried to resist you. And failing that,

married and tried to cloister my savage self.

Meantime, you had come to me in a bottle.

Though rarely given to gluttony, I found

drink to soothe the deep blue sky of my

 

exile within myself. It was then I learned

your voice was not mine, but something

elemental, something chemical and un-

natural to deny. Was that your deception?

What nature are we? What nature you?

Now, coming to middle age, I find you

calling from every open grave: sate your

curiosity! It takes but a breath to die.

 

No. Again, I deny you. Get thee hence!

My life is my own, and yet I wonder . . .

I did not give myself life; it is therefore

not mine to take from myself. Did God

create me for this life? Had He a plan?

Or am I, are we, simply a lawn gone to seed?

And still, we wage this everlasting war

among despair, faith, wonder, and curiosity.

David M Pitchford
27 May 2008

White Rose

Sonnet of the White Rose

Am I the quintessence of innocence?

So be it. But I have thorns. Is this not

paradox? Oh lovely dualesence!

Why do you pluck me? Is it then my lot

to be cut and thrust into that clear vase

that any may adore me? Or ignore?

What a fortune for beauty! To serve base

lust, to please the eye—poetry implore . . .

 

Oh, but are we all not symbolic? Words

that suggest, but never are the true thing?

Though in voices pure as heaven some sing,

are we more than melodies, songbirds’

piping to the moment? We are but white

petals blown by fragrant breeze and sunlight.

 David M Pitchford 92807

Lover’s Advice

Theseus on Saving Andromeda

It was never about heroics. No,

it was political and a matter

of position. I’d rather the splatter

of her blood had stained that stone! Didn’t know

until much later what a nag could grow

from a princess saved; oh! how this latter

Andromeda vexes me. No satyr

would bother these days . . . Let your no be no

 

lest some fair damsel make you a gelding

fit for domestic life and the road past

tense in your present perfect life! Wedding

a princess is such a far cry from last

innocence and the sport of just bedding

maidens. Run, Romeo, run away fast!

David M Pitchford
22 May 2008

Flashing Swords Press

Flashing Swords Press

Flashing Swords Press, publishers of The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Sword and Sorcery Fiction has a spanking new site! Pretty cool, too! Click over and buy your copy of RotS today! More fiction than you can shake a sword at – and more swords than you should shake a book at! Enjoy the read.

Flashing Swords Issue 10

Flashing Swords Issue 10 by Crystalwizard, Managing Editor Book in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Flashing Swords Press has another fantastic issue of Flashing Swords Magazine available now.

Having had the opportunity to join the FS as Associate Copy Editor, I’d really appreciate your support! Buy your copy and download it today in pdf, or enjoy the anticipation of having a hard copy mailed to you. Packed full of great fiction, this issue also boasts a wonderfully informative article on medieval weaponry and some great illustrations. Definitely worth twice the cover price! Such a deal. Get one for your favorite Sword & Sorcery fan as well.